‘Sieur Berengar, Demoiselle Alissende. You are back at last!’ Berengar’s manservant Pons unfastened Berengar’s cloak and baldric as he greeted them. ‘The notary is here to see you. Your grandmother has been waiting dinner for you. And –’
‘The notary?’ For a moment Berengar had no idea why the notary should have come to see him. The mention of dinner quite distracted him. ‘Can’t it wait till morning?’
‘A word with you in private, Sieur Berengar.’ The notary must have heard his voice and come out to greet him; his drab robes were dusty and travel-stained.
‘I’ll go to Gran’mère,’ Alissende said, hurrying away towards the old lady’s chamber. ‘But don’t be long, Bera, you know how she hates to be kept waiting. She’ll take it out on me.’
‘There is someone else to see you,’ Pons tried to interrupt. ‘Cap –’
‘Dinner, Pons!’ Berengar said impatiently. ‘Go!’
Pons opened his mouth to try again – then retreated.
‘This will not take long, sieur,’ said the notary.
‘It had better not.’ Berengar’s attention was wandering; he could smell roast fowl – he hoped it was duck, with salt rubbed into the skin to make it crisp …
‘It – is a delicate matter.’ The notary’s fingers wound themselves into a knot. ‘Concerning the parentage of your betrothed. Or to be more precise – your betrothed’s mother.’
Berengar stifled a yawn behind his fist.
‘I have been to Tolonada and made the most exhaustive enquiries. No one knows anything of a woman called Zillaïs. But there is a record of a Zillah bet Ithamar – who is said to have perished with all of her family when the boat in which they were travelling was wrecked off the coast of Galicys.’
‘Perished?’ Berengar was finding it hard to concentrate. ‘So this can’t be Dame Zillaïs.’ He began to walk down the panelled corridor, following the savoury scent of the salt-roast duck.
‘But the lady in question maintains she was rescued from a shipwreck, does she not?’ The notary pursued him. ‘And as she shipwreck, does she not? The notary pursued him. And as she was escaping from the massacre at Tolonada –’
Berengar stopped suddenly, swinging round.
‘Escaping from the massacre? What massacre?’
‘Perhaps I did not make myself quite clear,’ the notary said carefully. “The Zillah bet Ithamar said to have been drowned at sea was Tsiyonim. A few of the Tsiyonim inhabitants escaped – but most were slain. I came upon the records of the Ithamar family in the city archives because he was a physician, a respected physician by all accounts, in favour with the royal family of Tolonada, until –’
‘Tsiyonim?’ Berengar said the word under his breath, afraid lest someone – particularly the Dowager – should hear. ‘But that would make Lia –’
‘It would make the young lady Tsiyonim as well, through her mother’s bloodline, yes.’ The notary bowed his head low, as though deference might blunt the impact of his news.
‘Lia?’ Berengar stopped abruptly, turning on the notary. ‘But surely if her mother is this same Zillaïs – Zillah – she would have had to convert to marry Auger?’
‘Surely so.’ The notary nodded his head. ‘It would not, however, eradicate the indubitable fact that she was born Tsiyonim.’
‘Well, well, well,’ came a dry, mocking voice from the shadows. ‘How are you going to explain this to Gran’mère Belcastel?’ Jaufré d’Orbiel slid out from behind a tapestried door-curtain. His face was twisted into a wry smile. ‘A Tsiyonim daughter-in-law!’
‘Wh-what are you doing here?’ Berengar stammered.
‘Pons tried twice to tell you, but you dismissed him. An obedient servant, your Pons. He does what you tell him to do.’
Lia’s face swam palely before Berengar’s eyes, lost, confused, betrayed …
‘And of course, one is forced to ask, has the Maury family deliberately concealed the truth from you?’
‘Say nothing. For our friendship’s sake, Jaufré, if nothing else, say nothing. All this is circumstantial evidence, there’s no proof –’
‘I have brought back copies of the documents in question, sieur,’ said the notary in indignant tones.
Berengar glared at him.
‘Mmm. That duck smells good,’ Jaufré said, sniffing the air. ‘Did you know the Dowager has invited me to stay for dinner?’
‘Lia has been raised as one of us. She is no more Tsiyonim than I,’ persisted Berengar.
Jaufré gave a little shrug of the shoulders.
‘Berengar?’ called a woman’s voice, at once querulous and imperious. ‘Where have you been? Why are you so late?’
It was his grandmother, the Dowager; Berengar could hear the tap of her stick coming closer along the passageway. She would never understand. Maybe she need never understand …
‘Here’s my purse,’ he said, pulling it from his belt, pressing it into the notary’s hand. ‘You’ll find ten gold courons in it. Now give me those copies. There’ll be ten more if you produce documentary evidence of a different nature, understand me?’
After a moment’s initial hesitation the notary nodded and discreetly made his retreat.
‘Twenty courons.’ Jaufré looked at Berengar, one eyebrow lifting. ‘Is she worth it? Is any woman worth it? Oh – I quite forgot. She brings a considerable dowry to swell the Belcastel coffers, doesn’t she?’
‘Berengar!’ The Dowager appeared, leaning on her ebony cane, Alissende hovering behind. ‘Have you quite forgotten your manners? We have a guest. Whatever your business is, it must wait till after dinner. Captain Orbiel – give me your arm. You shall escort me into dinner.’
‘My pleasure.’ Jaufré bowed and offered his arm to the Dowager.
Berengar watched helplessly as Jaufré and the Dowager walked on ahead into the hall. That last jibe of Jaufré’s still stung. It was true, Lia would bring him an impressive dowry. Merchant money – but who were the Belcastels to be proud when their coffers were nearly empty? Many Arcassanne marriages were built on such arrangements of financial convenience. But this marriage was to be based on more than money; he genuinely liked Lia, had always liked her. He did not want to see her hurt.
Alissende tweaked at his sleeve, hissing, ‘Come on!’
Why was he worrying? Jaufré was his friend, had been his friend since childhood. Surely he would never betray a confidence, especially one as sensitive as this?
But as he followed his sister into the hall, the appetising smell of roast duck seemed to have lost its savour.
Snow falls from a leaden sky.
A wailing cry rings out over the empty landscape.
Jaufré shades his eyes against the chill brightness, scanning the snowfields. So faint, so inhuman the cry, it must have been a bird or a wild beast.
He looks down and sees footprints in the snow, small footprints trailing away into the distance. A child’s footprints.
Who would send a child out alone in this wilderness of snow?
The cry rings out again, plaintive yet distant.
Jaufré begins to wade through the snow, following the trail of prints.
And then he hears the flap of wingbeats overhead.
He glances up, expecting to see a bird, a buzzard or an eagle, swooping down from the mountains – but the snow-speckled skies are empty too.
The blizzard-wind falters, dies a moment, and Jaufré catches sight of his quarry. The child. Lost. Alone. Struggling forward blindly through the snow.
A shadow falls over Jaufré, the shadow of great, slow-beating wings.
The child stumbles, falls full-length in the snow.
The sky darkens. Glancing up, Jaufré sees a giant winged figure swooping down out of the sky, arms outraised to scoop up the child. White feathers drop from its soft wings, swirl and eddy, falling cold and wet on to Jaufré’s upturned face.
‘Shalgiel,’ Jaufré whispers into the sighing snow-wind, his tongue numbed by the winter’s chill, ‘Bringer of Snow …’
The snow where the child fell is stained darker than shadow. Jaufré drops to his knees, traces the icy outline of the imprint left by the boy’s frail form …
His hands come away damp, sticky …
He looks down and sees they are wet with blood.
Jaufré sat upright, shivering. He fumbled in the darkness for his tinder to light the lamp. He looked down, checking his palms, his fingers by its wavering flame.
They were sticky with sweat. Not blood.
Why had he dreamed of snow? The night was stiflingly hot. His whole body was wet, his hair stuck to his forehead.
Did the juice of Mynezhil poppies bring dreams of the snowfields where they grew? There had been a time when a single phial would have ensured a night’s oblivion. Now he was awake again after an hour or so’s uneasy dozing, awake and on edge. He suspected the apothecary of diluting the drops to keep his customers coming back for more, still more …
Sleep … he badly needed sleep …
But no dreams. No more dreams.
Jaufré picked up his pen, dipped it in the ink – then paused.
What was he doing?
He used to while away the boredom of hot summer nights playing with words. Nights were a fertile time for conjuring images from the darkness, for poetry.
What was the point in even trying?
And then the pen was moving across the page, feverishly writing, as if driven by a will other than his own.
Jaufré stared down at what he had written. The ink – in the lamplight – glowed red as fresh-spilt blood.
… the naked child shivers in the snow …
comes a knight, his armour silvered hoarfrost,
the child weeps but no one hears his cries
‘Cold knight of winter, why have you used me so cruelly?
For pity’s sake –’
With a cry of anger, Jaufré ripped the page in two and held the pieces to the lampflame. He watched the flame devour the words until they crumbled to ashes.
Memories of a freezing, bare chamber, a locked door, a child beating his fists against the wood until they bled, crying until his throat burned …
He clenched his hands tightly, willing away the memory.
‘Let me out, please let me out –’
‘You will learn to take your punishment like a man.’
‘But it’s dark in here. So dark. Let me have a light. J-just one little light?’
The child Jaufré tries to still his own juddering sobs, listening in vain for an answer. But all he can hear is the sound of retreating footsteps. The harsh Lord of Orbiel believes that children must be schooled into submission by rigorous chastisement.
He huddles back into the farthest corner of the unlit chamber. His mind has already begun to conjure shadow-daemons out of the chill darkness, daemons that come swarming to suck out his soul; he can almost smell the charnel foulness of their breath, see the voracious gleam in their luminous eyes, he can scarcely breathe for the choking terror. If he should die here, alone, forgotten –
Pray. Pray for help. He struggles to his knees, hands clasped together.
‘Lady, help me, I’ll be good, I’ll bring offerings to your shrine,’ he prays to the Lady of Arcassanne, pressing his hands tight together, trying to will her image to lighten the darkness, her pale, smiling face, her long tresses of golden hair, so like his mother, his dead mother …
Childhood was a time of defencelessness, vulnerability. He was strong now; he had armed himself against the world. Weakness was to be scorned. He had become the knight in cold armour.
So why, why did the child he had been still cry out, mourning its lost innocence?
This was not the verse he was renowned for, the villanelles, the rondeaux, barbed with acerbic wit, the love poetry, courteous and clever. This was some raw emanation from behind the door he had locked on his past.
Once poetry had been a consolation, a pleasing diversion in which he could mock the vagaries of life. Now, after months of drought, another child, cruelly abused, haunted his words, crying out for vengeance.
The lanternflame wavered. A thin, fine smoke guttered from its failing brightness. Jaufré stared at it, mesmerised. There was no stir of breeze in the sultry night and yet still the shadowsmoke unravelled from the wavering flame …
Suddenly he could not bear to be alone any longer. Snatching up his jacket and sword, he extinguished the flame and went clattering down the stairs, out into the sultry Arcassanne night.
‘I can wait all night, tailor. But you will answer me.’
Schimeon had been brought from the cells to a room in the Tour de la Justice. He stood, hands manacled, before Jaufré and the clerk of the court, who sat ready with pen and ink to record the tailor’s interrogation.
Jaufré’s fingers strayed towards the carved shell he had torn from Schimeon’s doorpost which he had placed on the table in front of him.
‘On whose authority do you hold me here without charge?’
‘Comte Aymon. Do you want to see the documents? He has given me power to interrogate anyone I suspect of involvement in the murder of the child. And you, Schimeon, are highly suspect. It was on your doorstep the body was found.’
‘I don’t deny it! But I had nothing to do with the murder.’
‘How do you explain this?’ Jaufré held up the shell and shook it. It rattled. To his satisfaction, he saw Schimeon blink; for a moment the master tailor’s reserve faltered.
‘Explain it? We put shells on our houses to remind us of the sea we have been forced to cross in our flight from Tsiyon – and that we hope to cross again one day when we return home. It is a custom of our people.’
‘Does the tailor speak the truth, I wonder?’ Jaufré took his dagger and slid the blade-point into a crack in the shell – then levered.
‘No!’ Schimeon cried out.
With a crack, the ivory shell shattered. Jaufré, trying to control his growing excitement, searched amongst the fragments. In the lanternlight he saw a piece of curled parchment. Opening it up, he could make out signs inscribed on it in an unfamiliar and ancient script.
‘What’s this?’ He thrust it under Schimeon’s nose. ‘How do you explain this?’
‘Part of a prayer. It’s a good-luck charm.’
‘It must have some ritual significance.’
‘I told you. A good-luck charm, nothing more.’
‘Very well.’ Jaufré replaced the fragment of parchment on the table beside his dagger. His heart was beating fast with the thrill of his discovery. ‘Let’s return to the matter of the boy. Who found the body? Who was the first?’
Schimeon turned his face away.
Jaufré shrugged, keeping up his pretence of disinterest. But all the while his heart kept thudding, his fingers itched to touch, to caress the ancient piece of parchment again. ‘Berengar!’ he called.
Berengar came into the chamber.
‘Go and bring me more of the Tsiyonim shells. Strip the Quarter of them. I want them brought here by dawn.’
He saw Berengar’s eyes flicker towards Schimeon in his manacles.
‘Why have you arrested my tailor?’
‘The boy’s body was found on his doorstep.’
‘Are you determined to ruin my wedding, Jaufré?’ Berengar asked, pleasantly enough. ‘How can my wedding clothes be finished in time if you keep my tailor locked up?’
‘If your tailor can prove his innocence, then he’ll be released.’
Jaufré saw Berengar open his mouth to object – and then close it again. He was beginning to doubt Berengar’s suitability as a Hawk; when they had been boys together, Berengar had always been his faithful lieutenant, a little slow to comprehend the task in hand but always eager to please. The lords of Belcastel were not renowned for their quickness of wit, though their loyalty and bravery in battle had never been in doubt. Yet recently Berengar had begun to question Jaufré’s actions … was it Lia Maury’s influence? Better he were absent from the interrogation.
As the door closed behind Berengar, Jaufré leaned close to the clerk and said – just loud enough for Schimeon to hear – ‘Is the girl ready to be questioned?’
‘In the next room, Captain.’
‘Girl?’ Schimeon raised his head. ‘What girl?’
‘Have her brought in,’ Jaufré said, purposely ignoring Schimeon.
The Tsiyonim girl was young, maybe two or three years younger than Alissende de Belcastel, Jaufré reckoned, but with none of Alissende’s pale insipidity. Her dark eyes might be red-rimmed with crying – but they flashed defiantly at him as she reared her head.
‘You say your name is Michal. You are Schimeon’s daughter. Where were you when the boy’s body was found?’
‘Asleep.’ Her voice was sullen.
‘You slept through the whole disturbance?’
‘I’m a heavy sleeper.’
Jaufré rose from his chair and walked around the table to stand close to her, so close he could sense the apprehension she tried to hide beneath the defiant mask.
‘How unfortunate.’ He paused, savouring her discomfort. ‘If you had been able to identify the member of your community who found the body, I could have let you go free. Now I shall be forced to keep you here until one of You recovers his memory.’
He could see the throb of the pulse at the base of her throat where her torn chemise revealed skin of a darker bloom than any pale Arcassanne demoiselle’s. He had a sudden desire to reach out, to touch, to see her flinch away –
‘I’ll tell you what you what you want to know, Orbiel,’ Schimeon said heavily.
‘No, Father!’ Michal whirled around, bound hands upraised. ‘Don’t–’
‘It was Rahab.’
Michal let out a cry.
‘Who is this Rahab?’
‘My apprentice, sieur. Now let my daughter go, as you promised. She’s only a child.’
‘Bertran. Did you hear what the tailor said?’ Jaufré beckoned over the man standing guard near the door. ‘Go arrest the apprentice. He’s called Rahab.’
‘Father!’ cried Michal, her eyes dark with anguish.
‘Now let her go,’ Schimeon said heavily.
‘Oh, I’m not releasing anyone yet,’ Jaufré said, studying his fingernails. The tailor was beginning to sweat; well, let him sweat a little longer. ‘Not until this Rahab is arrested. Then we’ll see if his story accords with yours.’