LOGIS DU MARTINET, LAGRASSE—TIME UNKNOWN
Lia emerged from the stairwell into a short passage. Lit by an unseen source, the corridor was a conch shell of glowing, iridescent stone. She had no idea how far she’d traveled. She tried to shove away the image of tons of earth piled over her, but her breath came shallow and fast, and her heart skittered inside a chest that felt too small to contain her fear.
An open archway gave into a vast, empty courtyard enclosed by high walls of solid granite. A fine mist fell in a curtain of silver beads from the pearl of open sky. It was daylight, impossibly, inexplicably, but daylight all the same. Relieved of the choking panic of claustrophobia, it mattered little to Lia where she’d come from or how she’d get out. She leaned against the wall, raised her face to the sky, and closed her eyes. She was beyond logic now. Calm flowed into her limbs, and her stomach unclenched. She couldn’t explain this any more than she could explain how or why the wheels of time had spun Raoul, Lucas, and Jordí until their souls collided with hers. She was ready to let it go. To let happen what would.
A child’s giggle broke through her reverie. She sprang away from the wall and looked around. Just outside an open threshold carved into the stone stood two children, three or four years old, with bare feet and wearing simple brown shifts. The boy’s dark-blond curls touched the tips of his ears and sprang across his forehead to his brow. A lavender kerchief covered the girl’s hair, and loose braids poured over her shoulders. The twins gawked at her with hazel eyes that made her think of the forest at sunrise.
Moments later, a woman cradling an infant stepped into the courtyard. She bent toward the children, whispered a few words, and kissed their dimpled cheeks. The twins glanced at Lia and then raced away.
“Mei viste!” Bertran called in Occitan. “Hurry up!”
“Espera-me!” Aicelina called after her brother to wait.
The woman approached Lia unafraid, her eyes glowing with tenderness and gentle curiosity. She was petite and willow-thin. A white wimple embroidered with flowers of gold thread covered her head, and thick waves of silver and gold cascaded over her left shoulder. Her eyes were the silvery green of the garigue in spring. But for the hair and height, Lia was looking at her twin.
“Paloma,” she gasped. The walls amplified her voice, carrying her name to each corner of the empty space.
“I’m so glad you found your way, Lia.”
“You know who I am?”
“Of course. I’ve been waiting for you.”
GRUISSAN—DECEMBER 1208
The long December night wore on, but Raoul knew it was not too early for fishermen and scavengers to appear on the beach, where seagulls squabbled over crabs laid bare by the retreating tide. He led Mirò through the clinging sand, slipping and skidding over wet rocks strewn with seaweed. As they neared the village, he caught the aroma of smoke rising above the tang of shore debris. It carried an unnatural sourness, and he fought the urge to leap on his horse and pound across the sand, anxiety nearly subsuming his caution.
The village wall climbed out of Étang d’Ayrolle—the vast salt marsh that fed Jean Duchesne’s fortune—and rose in an ever-tightening circle, protecting the village from the tides. Raoul had traversed this way before, when he’d brought his family to Gruissan in secrecy on an October night. Once Paloma and the children were safely inside and comfortable, Jean had locked the door and formally, publicly, closed his house, taking his family and staff to Paris. His stone manor had remained dark and silent, betraying nothing of the four lives sealed within. Raoul had left his family in Gruissan only two months before, yet it seemed an eternity ago.
He ascended a ramp built into the town’s outer foundation and arrived at a recessed door. The wood, warped by the salt air, resisted the thrust of his shoulder before giving way with a scrape and groan of iron hinges. The odor of smoke was stronger inside the town’s walls, and it carried a sickly note, a rotting sweetness. Mirò snorted, and her ears flattened against her great head. Raoul soothed her with soft sounds and led her through the compact doorway. Her flanks grazed the opening, her massive shoulders barely clearing the rounded arch.
Horse and man emerged into a covered alley. The sound of Mirò’s iron shoes on the cobblestones echoed sharply in the sheltered street. The alley ended in a courtyard surrounded by tall buildings of plaster and timber—the homes of merchant families. A fountain of stone sat in the middle. Raoul scooped a handful of water and brought it to his lips—it was sweet and pure, sourced from one of the underground streams that poured down from the western hills. He left Mirò to drink and rest, not bothering to tie the reins. The horse would await his return and snap her powerful jaws at any hands that would try to disturb her. Raoul followed the scent of smoke through the quiet streets.
An old woman appeared from an opening in the wall that bordered the brick lane. A shawl covered her head, clasped at the neck by a gnarled hand. She stopped short and stood silently as Raoul approached, taking in his filthy, mud-strewn clothes.
“Grandmother,” he said, extending a hand as a gesture of calm. “What has happened here? Has the flux come?”
Her eyes hardened, and she nodded her head once, twice. “Oh yes, it is a plague,” she said. “A plague of men, a plague of priests.” She spat on the ground, an ugly gesture from this tiny, bent creature. “Soldiers came—from Toulouse, I heard say—with priests among them, looking for the heretics.”
Raoul’s blood chilled. He wanted to grab her thin shoulders and rattle loose the story of what she’d witnessed.
“I live just here”—she pointed to the alley behind—“and I watched from the shadows as they passed. They weren’t so many—a few men-at-arms, two priests. And a woman with child and two little ones I’d never seen. Such pretty creatures. One of those bastards took the little boy from the woman’s arms as they passed. Carried him to his death, I’m sure.”
Raoul felt as though his limbs had turned to molten iron; his blood pounded in his ears.
The old woman continued. “The lady, golden as an angel, she stumbled just here.” She pointed to a cobblestone kicked loose and sticking up in the street. “There was a man in black, neither priest nor soldier, who caught her and held her up. I must have made a sound when she stumbled, for when they paused together, he looked into this darkness.” The old woman jerked her head back to the dim passage. “It was as if he could see past the shadows and into my soul. His eyes were as black as soot.” She shuddered.
Before she finished, Raoul was twisting through the passageways to the center of the walled village. Saint-Maurice dominated the square, silent, black, and smoking.