MAS HIVERT, FERRALS-LES-CORBIÈRES—SAME DAY
“Lia!” Paul appeared before her. He clasped her shoulders with his meaty hands and enfolded her in a crushing hug. His greeting broke the spell, and a cacophony of voices rang as the children exploded into the kitchen in a swirl of snow and barking dogs. Rose and Céline released the children from their zipped jackets and tight boots, while Domènec passed around bottles of cold beer, and Lia busied herself with the mulled cider that simmered on the stove.
As she set a mug of spiced cider on the counter, she scanned the room, but the man had slipped away. Movement beyond the window caught her eye, and she saw him heading toward the barn with a shotgun over his shoulder, the action open and muzzle pointed toward the ground. If he was cleaning the gun, he’d be out there a while.
She had to endure the gauntlet of embraces and chatter in the kitchen, but as soon as she could, Lia slipped out to the mudroom and stepped into a pair of Rose’s boots. She waved to Jean-Luc, who’d set up a pheasant-cleaning station on a concrete apron beyond the back patio, and ran through the thin layer of snow.
Inside, the barn was warm and lit by a series of pendant lights hanging from a loft ceiling, and the air was thick with the scent of clean hay and the musk of horse. At the end of a long corridor that ran between the stables, the man leaned over a wooden door, caressing the muzzle of Domènec’s beloved bay, Django.
Lia pulled up short, remaining in the shadows, but the door closed behind her with a thump. The man’s gaze followed the sound, and he stared at her for a long moment. As he approached, she saw that he was slightly changed from the man she’d met in Carcassonne—older, wearier somehow. His eyes were the same—deep brown and flecked with green and gold—but the skin around them was lined in white, crinkled from squinting into the sun. Soft feathers of gray graced his temples, and strands of silver shot through his close-cropped brown hair. Lia felt again the heart-stopping sensation that she was standing before the ghost of her husband.
“You could be no one else but Lia,” he said, extending his hand. “The prodigal daughter returns. Welcome home. I’m Raoul Arango.”
Her arm seemed to move of its own accord. She saw the white flash of her palm, felt the sting run from her hand up her arm as it smashed into the side of his face. The crack of her slap echoed through the barn. Tears stung her eyes.
“Jesucrist,” he swore in Catalan.
“I’m claustrophobic, you son of a bitch!” She swiped at her face with the back of her hand, smearing angry tears.
“You’re also insane.” His fingertips touched his cheek, and his tongue probed from the other side. His baffled look gave her a moment of triumph and wonder at her own strength. “What was that for?”
“You’re shitting me,” she spit in English.
Raoul scowled at the ugly hiss; she guessed that even if he didn’t understand the words, he grasped their meaning.
“Two days ago?” she continued in French, biting her sentences into chunks. “The basilica? Raving like a madman and shoving me into a tunnel? Who the hell are you?” Her voice rose, and she heard the scraping of horse hooves on cement.
“Valga’m Déu,” he cursed again in Catalan and scrubbed a hand over his face. “What are you talking about?”
“Do you really not remember?” The anger waned, and bewilderment poured in. “Carcassonne? You called me Paloma.”
Raoul stilled at the sound of the name, unwilling or unable to answer. Then he pinched the bridge of his nose as if pushing back a headache.
The side door flew open, and Nicolas entered, stamping the snow from his feet. “Oh, hey! Didn’t know anyone was in here. I’ve been sent on an ice mission.” They stared at him. “Just here? In the freezer?” Nicolas jerked a thumb at the large chest freezer humming in a corner.
Raoul broke away from Lia without a word.
The two men pulled bags of ice from the freezer, and as they left the barn, Nicolas tossed a glance over his shoulder at Lia, his eyebrows raised. “Lia, tu viens? Are you coming?”
“J’arrive. I’m on my way,” she replied.
The sounds of snuffling horses, the wind whistling through a crack in a window, and the slow drip of water on cement began to filter through as the pounding of blood eased from her head.
FERRALS-LES-CORBIÈRES—FEBRUARY 1208
The moon rose as Raoul descended to the Orbieu River valley. It was early evening and cloudless; the sunset cast a faded vermilion glow across the scrubland plain. Already the days were lengthening toward spring, but as darkness fell, a wise traveler would be making haste toward shelter. Only a few miles lay between him and his home—he would reach Lagrasse by supper.
Leaving Montpellier later than he’d planned, he bypassed the main road for the hidden byways and sheep trails. News of the archdeacon’s assassination by a hired mercenary of the Count of Toulouse had spread west from Saint-Gilles a month before, and rumors of retribution by the Catholic Church followed swiftly behind. Strangers speaking langue d’oïl—the language of the French kingdom to the north—had become an increasingly common sight. They traveled on horseback in small groups, openly armed and looking like the soldiers Raoul supposed them to be.
His nostrils flared at the scent of smoke. With the slightest pull of her reins, Mirò stopped. She tensed under Raoul’s thighs and fluttered out a questioning whinny. Raoul gathered a handful of forelock and rubbed her mane. “I know, girl, I know,” he soothed the disquieted horse.
Taking note of the wind’s direction, he turned to see if he was still alone on the rocky trail and out of sight of the main road. He lingered a moment before he gave Mirò’s flanks a minute squeeze and flicked the reins to leave the brush for the wide road that led straight to Ferrals-les-Corbières, the last village before his home outside Lagrasse.
Inside the walls, Ferrals-les-Corbières was silent. Daub huts clustered against the great tower like mushrooms on a log, but despite the persistent, acrid odor of smoke, their thatch roofs were still intact. Farther in, stone-and-timber structures offered more security and warmth but no more signs of life than the peasants’ lean-tos. Raoul dismounted and followed an alley to the tiny central square that opened before Saint-Genès, Ferrals-les-Corbières’s compact, square chapel.
There he saw several men and women carrying buckets of water from the village well into the chapel, while others emerged from its interior bearing loads of wood or stone. They worked with grim determination, the fronts and sleeves of their tunics and smocks soaked with water or sweat despite the chill. It was then he noticed that the arch above the chapel’s portal had been shorn in half. Black soot stained the sand-colored brick around the edges of the open door. The missing door, Raoul realized. It was nothing more than clumps of charred wood.
He heard a click and a low whistle. Looking up, he saw a man descending a ladder set against the chapel wall. At his warning sound, those on the ground turned toward Raoul, and work came to a reluctant halt. They glared at him with sullen expressions, the whites of their eyes in stark contrast to their soot-covered faces.
“I’m Raoul d’Aran of Lagrasse,” he said, opening his hands to show he held only the reins to his horse. “I’m returning home. What happened here?”
A few snorts followed his question, and most of the villagers went on with their work. An elderly man too feeble to lift the heavy buckets shuffled to Raoul’s side, leaning heavily on a cane as though it were a third leg.
“Jaufres Belengers?” he croaked.
“I know old Jaufres,” Raoul replied. “His sons run sheep on my land.”
The old man nodded, satisfied Raoul was trustworthy. “Jaufres is my cousin. Tell him Tibout wishes him good health, but not so good he outlives me.” He laughed, a high, wheezing sound full of phlegm, and placed a bony hand on Raoul’s arm to steady himself. “Where have you been that you are not home on this cursed night?”
“I had business in Carcassonne,” he lied. “I’m a winemaker and merchant.” The latter was true, but it was not his vocation that had taken him away from the village.
“Misfortune can befall a man on these roads after dark.”
“I’m sorry for the misfortune here,” replied Raoul. He wasn’t in the mood for a grandfather’s lecture. “But the village doesn’t appear damaged beyond the chapel. The fire started inside?”
“No misfortune, this.” Tibout spat a glob of gray mucus just beyond the toe of Raoul’s boot. “Evil hands set this fire.”
A wiry man, perhaps ten years Raoul’s senior, snapped his head up from where he was crouched at the well. His cheeks sunk around nearly toothless gums. He hissed at Tibout and threw a glare at Raoul that was thick with contempt.
“It’s the French,” the old man continued, heedless of the warning. “Since Toulouse had the pope’s man killed, Languedoc has become a French soldier’s playground.”
Raoul needed no further explanation. This hadn’t been an accident of candles left unattended, a flame snatched by the wind and tossed at the wooden roof and door, but another sign that revenge for Castelnau’s murder was rippling in faster and faster waves through Languedoc’s villages. Even as the count proclaimed he was innocent of any conspiracy, the alleged criminal had been torn apart by a mob, and rumors moved from murder to war. Castelnau’s assassination had lanced the boil of Languedoc resistance; Paris and Rome would clean the wound of heretics by fire. Raoul walked toward the chapel and was met halfway by the man who had warned the others of his approach from his perch on the ladder.
“You should move on, retake the road to your family. The old man is right. Misadventure follows the solo traveler.”
“I can tell you what happened here,” said Raoul, ignoring the admonition. “A small band with swords and shields but no coat of arms arrived in the morning after most men had gone to the fields or vineyards. The strangers rounded up the women and old ones here,” he said as he swept his arm around the small square. “One or two started the fire in the church, and the others stayed outside to frighten the villagers. By the time you saw the smoke and could return, the riders had fled in the other direction. Am I correct?”
The man folded his arms against his chest and squared his shoulders, looking oddly vulnerable yet determined. “They told the women, ‘If there are Cathars among you, banish them, or we’ll return to burn them out.’”
Raoul gave a quick tip of his chin to show he understood, that he’d heard it before.
“If they are after heretics, why would they destroy a Christian church?” asked the man, his voice low to hide it from listening ears.
“Forget reason, my friend. It isn’t just a religion they want to destroy; it’s our land they want to possess.”
Raoul left them to pour water on the remaining hot ashes in the church. They could rebuild the roof if the interior frame wasn’t badly damaged. Otherwise, the ruined structure would stand as another in a growing collection of crumbling, smoking warning signs that war was coming to Languedoc.