The carriage pulled into the arched courtyard of the Hospital of Santa Cristina just after first light. Sleepy monks came out and took charge of the exhausted horses and the equally tired escort of soldiers. The noise of their arrival attracted the attention of virtually everybody. Above all, it announced the fact that the road was now well and truly open. Their period of hibernation was over. The younger monks welcomed the arrival of fresh people with new tales to tell, while many of the older men regretted the fact that their peaceful winter routine was once again to be disturbed.
For Aimée, it brought mixed feelings. On the one hand it meant renewed contact with reality, with all the problems and troubles that could bring. On the other hand, this very break in the regular routine of the abbey was welcome. She had very soon worked out that life of a nun was not for her. A changeless daily ritual did not give her the solace that it gave others. She badly needed the stimulus of contact with the outside world, however frightening the thought of this might be.
She rubbed her eyes. It was a habitual, if futile, gesture. She knew she would never see again, and she had even ceased to hope any more. Instead, in her own characteristic forceful way, she was pushing herself to learn to see with her other senses, just as quickly as she could. She already knew her way around the hospice without the need for any more than the most cursory of touches. Her nose told her whether the kitchen doors were open, her ears whether there were monks in the church. The skin of her cheeks could sense whether it was day or night, freezing or thawing. You can learn a lot in three months.
Aimée listened to the noises from the courtyard. The sounds were funnelled upwards by the sheer stone walls to the window where she was standing. She counted at least six horses, maybe eight. She felt the air on her face and knew that dawn had broken and the temperature was already above freezing. The snow must have melted off the road that led from the Somport pass. If it was possible for this carriage to get through then, before long, pilgrims would again be streaming across. Memories of what she had come to think of as her previous life crowded uninvited into her mind. She shook her head angrily to chase them away, but still they came pouring back in unstoppable waves.
There had been six of them in the group; three men, two women and a little girl. All of them, for various reasons, had been desperate to get across the pass, despite the arrival of heavy winter snows. She had known little or nothing about any of them apart, of course, from Bertrand; Bertrand her husband with the secret mission that had cost him his life.
Even now, two full months later, she found it hard to think of Bertrand without breaking down. They had been married for so long, and been through so much in the last few years, that she still could hardly believe that he was gone. But he was. Of that there could be no doubt. She had watched him die in a vain attempt to save her after the other four, even the little girl, had been butchered by the bandits who had been waiting at the top of the pass. If her eyes had seen anything after that moment, her mind had mercifully blotted it from her memory forever. After his death there had only been the horror, the defilement, and the pain.
She wiped her eyes again and found her hand wet with tears. The irony was that the attack had come from ordinary bandits, rather than the massed forces of the King of France. And she and Bertrand had been so close to their goal. Angrily, she rubbed her face with her sleeve and tried to break the train of thought. There had been times during the first weeks in the hospital when she had come very close indeed to taking her own life. It was only the knowledge that she had a mission, Bertrand’s mission, to accomplish, that stopped her. Deep in her heart she felt sure that, when she had finally done what he had sworn to do, she wouldn’t hesitate to leave this lonely life and join him. But first she had to carry out the mission. And there was no doubt that her blindness complicated things a thousandfold.
She leant back against the carved stone window surround and took deep breaths of ice-cold air.
‘Ah, there you are, Aimée.’
She started. It was the abbot. She had been so preoccupied with her thoughts that she hadn’t heard him approach.
‘I thought I saw you up here. I came to warn you that the soldiers have told us there’s a desperate, dangerous man coming our way. It would be best if you stayed inside for the time being, until they’ve apprehended him.’ His tone became drier. ‘The information comes from a distinguished source. Amazingly, it appears we’ve been visited by His Grace the Archbishop of Sens.’ Aimée jumped as if she had been stung. If the abbot noticed, he gave no hint of it in his voice. ‘I just thought you might be interested to know.’ With that, he carried on down the long corridor, leaving her in disarray.
The Archbishop of Sens; Aimée knew his name so well. He was none other than Philippe de Marigny himself, the brother of the Royal Chamberlain. He was the man responsible for the terrible deaths of so many Templars, often as a result of inhuman torture. And now he was here in the high Pyrenees in person. What would a senior church dignitary be doing in pursuit of a dangerous criminal, unless…?
There could be no other explanation: they knew about Bertrand’s mission. And they would soon know, if they didn’t already, of her survival. She had no illusions as to the treatment she would receive from them when they apprehended her. She shuddered. Her alternatives had suddenly become brutally simple. She had to get away, or she had to take her own life. Either way, there was no time to lose.
She racked her brains as to what to do. There was no way she would be able to get far without assistance. To make matters worse, even if she managed to get out of the abbey unchallenged, the thought that the same gang of bandits might still be in the neighbourhood was terrifying. She clenched her teeth and forced herself to consider her options logically and rationally. Of the monks in the hospital there were few, if any, to whom she could turn for help.
That left nobody – apart from, she thought with a surge of excitement, apart from the man they were expecting to come up the valley towards them. Of course! Her pulse quickened. If such a high-ranking figure as the Archbishop of Sens was here in person, there could be no doubt about it. The dangerous, desperate man who was expected had to be a Templar like Bertrand. And there was only one man to equal him that she knew, at least the only one she knew still at liberty. Luc, could it be Luc? Of the very few Templar knights left after the arrests, he was far and away the best. There was no doubt in her mind that he, when he arrived there, would prove to be her salvation. Her spirits soared for the first time in months. She turned and hurried back to her cell to collect her few belongings. She needed to be ready to leave as soon as she made contact with him.