A sudden gust of wind flapped the shutters wildly on their twisted hinges. A turbulence of mist gusted into the chamber, a whirl of rain-wet air and spinning thundercloud.
Zillaïs threw her arms around Lia, pulling her out of the way.
The whole house shuddered convulsively – then fell still.
Slowly the pall of cloud began to dissolve, revealing the figure of a man slumped face-down on the floor. Half-naked, soaked, his sodden clothes shredded to tatters, his hair plastered in wet strands to his head, he lay as if dead.
The Guardian had brought Rahab back to them.
‘Is he – is he –’ Lia stammered.
Zillaïs went to kneel beside him, reaching to feel for the pulse in his throat.
‘Alive? Yes.’ Only just alive, she might have added, but she did not wish to alarm Lia further. There were practical considerations, too. Rahab was still a wanted man; hadn’t Emmenza told them he had been sighted in the Merchants’ Quarter? It might be many hours before he returned to himself, and even when he did, it would be a day, maybe two, before he had regained enough strength to walk. And now that the storm was abating the Hawks would be on his trail again.
She looked up from the prone body and saw Lia watching her warily.
‘You’ll have to help me,’ she said. ‘I can’t lift him on my own.’
‘Lift him?’ Lia’s brows rose.
‘Then pull your mattress on to the floor. We’ll roll him on to it.’
‘My mattress? But he’s soaking wet!’
Zillaïs took a deep breath; it was understandable, she told herself, that Lia should react in this way. But there was no time for explanations now; she must tend to Rahab first.
‘You can sleep in my bed. We’ll tell Emmenza that your room was flooded by the storm and it will need a day or two to dry out.’
Lia paused a moment, mouth open as if to protest – and then she turned to the bed and, gripping the mattress with both hands, dragged it on to the floor.
Then between them they took hold of Rahab by shoulder and hip and half-pushed, half-rolled his limp body on to the mattress.
Zillaïs took out her kerchief and gently wiped his cold face, stroking the wet locks from his forehead.
‘So young …’ she whispered. He could hardly be a year or more older than Lia; he could have been her son.
‘Why did you never tell me?’ Lia said in a small, peeved voice.
‘I told you all you needed to know.’ Zillaïs kept her eyes on Rahab’s still face. ‘All that you were told was true. My father, Ithamar, was herbalist and physician to the court of Tolonada. He taught me all I know.’
‘But the amulets,’ Lia persisted. She was pointing at the metal discs, as if unwilling to touch them or get too near.
Zillaïs sighed.
‘How shall we protect them now the shells are broken?’ She went over to where the amulets lay, still dully gleaming amidst the water and shell debris.
‘That’s not what I meant, Mother,’ Lia said.
‘Later,’ Zillaïs said, glancing around for something in which to place the precious talismans. ‘What’s this?’ She picked up a piece of crumpled red material. ‘It looks like some kind of child’s toy …’
Drenched to the skin, Berengar forded the narrow street which still ran with rainwater.
The air was filled with choking smoke – but the fires were dampening down in the still-falling rain. The taste of the billowing smoke fouled his mouth, his throat.
Torches lay quenched in the streaming gutters where Guillemette’s followers had dropped them as they ran to seek cover from the violence of the storm.
But where were the Tsiyonim?
The first row of houses was a charred shell, the roof timbers fallen in. He satisfied himself there was no one trapped in there alive – before coming to the last house in the lane, a fine stone building whose sign of beaten metal proclaimed its owner to be a moneylender.
The crowd had tried to batter down the doors, hoping, no doubt, to loot the moneylender’s coffers. When Berengar and his men arrived, the mob had torched the roof. But though the roof still smouldered, the sturdy stone construction had survived.
Berengar hammered on the nailed door with his fist.
‘Anyone inside?’
There was no answer.
Suppose they had been saved from the fire – only to be suffocated by the choking smoke?
‘It’s safe to come out. You won’t be harmed. I give you my word. My word of honour as lord of Belcastel.’
And then, to his infinite relief, he heard the sound of chains being undone, latches lifted … and the door creaked slowly open.
Coughing, blinking in the cloudy daylight, they ventured out into the rain, clutching hold of each other, bedraggled, their faces smeared with smuts, men carrying little children, women supporting the elderly.
As they glanced uncertainly around them, Berengar heard their hushed murmurs of disbelief.
‘So much burned down, so quickly …’
‘All my goods, my livelihood gone …’
‘Where shall we go now?’
‘Do you have any news of my husband, Lord Berengar?’ asked a soft, anxious voice. ‘Or my daughter?’
Berengar turned to see a wan-faced woman with two little girls clinging to her skirts. He thought he recognised her but couldn’t quite place …
‘I’m Chadassah, Schimeon’s wife,’ she said. One of the girls started to whine and she stroked her dark head mechanically. ‘Captain Orbiel arrested them both.’ Her voice faltered. ‘I – I have no idea why.’
‘I’ll see what I can find out for you,’ Berengar said, aware how lame his offer sounded.
An old man approached.
‘If we’re to stay here, we need protection,’ he said, thrusting his face into Berengar’s, white eyebrows bristling. ‘Guards to stop the looting of our damaged shops and houses.’
‘I’ll have to go to the Comte,’ Berengar said, taking a step back. ‘Until then I can leave four of my men here.’
‘Four!’ the old man said testily. ‘What use are four against a mob?’
A man came running up, calling out, ‘We can shelter in the shul, Baruch. It’s undamaged.’
‘An armed guard,’ Baruch said to Berengar.
Berengar signed to the Hawks to stand by as the Tsiyonim shouldered bundles of possessions and set off down the lane. The Hawks followed at a distance, Berengar at the rear of the ragged procession.
‘Witchcraft!’ A woman’s voice, raw with emotion, screeched out suddenly. ‘I smell witchcraft!’
Guillemette had appeared at the end of the lane, with a few of her supporters. All were drenched to the skin, shivering with the wet and cold.
‘That was no ordinary storm.’ She went to Berengar. ‘Didn’t you hear? Didn’t you see the daemon at the heart of the storm, the daemon they summoned?’
Berengar, fearing more trouble, beckoned his sergeant Arnault over.
‘Get her away from here,’ he said under his breath. ‘Quickly.’
‘You think you’re safe under Aymon’s protection?’ Guillemette’s rain-streaked face was contorted with hatred as she jabbed her finger at the bewildered Tsiyonim. ‘You think you’ve escaped this time? I tell you – no witchcraft will save you next time, no hellspawn daemon will protect you –’
‘Come, madam,’ Arnault said, taking her firmly by the arm, ‘time to go home.’
‘You’ll pay! You’ll pay!’ Guillemette screamed as Arnault dragged her away. ‘We’ll be back for you – and your children!’
Rain still beat against Jaufré d’Orbiel’s high tower, still poured from the louring clouds on to the city of Arcassanne. But the thunder had ceased to roll over the river plain, the wind had dropped and a faint, thin line of light gleamed beneath the clouds towards the west.
Jaufré, still charged with excitement, went running through the wet streets to the Tour delà Justice, hurrying down the stairs to the interrogation room where he had left Jehiel manacled to the wall.
‘You lied, Rebh Jehiel. You lied to me.’
The old scholar did not reply.
‘You told me the Guardian Amulets were all lost. And now I have seen with my own eyes, all Arcassanne has seen, the destructive power of a Winged Guardian.’
Jehiel slowly, wearily raised his head.
‘A Guardian? No, no … it’s not possible.’ His voice was a cracked whisper, issuing from parched lips.
‘I saw it! With these very eyes!’ Jaufré pushed his face close to Jehiel’s. ‘Barakiel.’ Why was the old man so intransigent? There’s no point trying to deceive me.’
‘Deceive you?’ Jehiel’s voice was so faint, Jaufré had to lean closer to catch his words. ‘There were only two amulets left … and one of those … was lost … at sea …’ As Jehiel’s voice faded to silence, Jaufré realised to his annoyance that the scholar had fainted.
‘Wine!’ he shouted. One of the Hawks on duty brought over a cup. ‘Give the prisoner a drink.’
Between them, the two Hawks tilted Jehiel’s head back and held the cup to his lips. As the wine trickled down his throat, Jehiel began to cough and splutter.
‘He’s very weak, Captain. Shouldn’t we take him down? He’s not likely to escape in his condition.’
Jaufré swore.
‘Sit him in the chair. But keep his wrists and ankles tied.’
The Hawks unlocked the manacles and propped Jehiel in Jaufré’s high-backed chair. Jehiel’s face was grey as cobweb-threads. A drop of wine dribbled from one side of his mouth.
‘Now talk,’ Jaufré ordered. He was in no mood for Jehiel’s scholastic perorations. ‘These amulets. Tell me more.’
‘Nothing to tell …’ Jehiel’s lids fluttered; he seemed to waver between waking and unconsciousness. ‘Belonged to … the Tribe of Ithamar … Ithamar of Tolonada was the last of his line … drowned at sea … twenty years back off the coast of Galicys …’ His eyes opened suddenly and stared at Jaufré. ‘I told you, Captain, those amulets are dangerous.’
‘Ithamar,’ Jaufré whispered. ‘Ithamar of Tolonada.’ So Berengar’s notary had discovered a truth hidden even from the Tsiyonim community: that Ithamar’s daughter was alive and living incognito in Arcassanne …
‘A good man, a scholar and a healer … But even he was destroyed by the power of the Guardian. Do you understand me?’
Jaufré was not listening any longer. He took up his sword and slipped it into its sheath, seizing his cloak.
‘Bertran – stay and watch the old man. Martin, round up six of the Hawks and meet me in a quarter of an hour.’
‘Where?’ Martin asked.
‘The Merchants Charter. We’re going to pay a visit to a lady. A very special lady. Madame Zillaïs Maury.’
Water dripped slowly from the roof gutter above Lia’s bedchamber window.
Lia went to close the broken shutter and stepped straight in a puddle of rainwater that had pooled on the floor.
‘Ugh.’ she drew back, shaking the cold drops from her foot in disgust.
The sky was white, a sheen of pale, high cloud washed clean by the storm. But the street had become a churned stream, running with mud. Roof tiles lay smashed into red shards on the paving below.
The gillyflowers in the courtyard garden, her mother’s delight, had all but been destroyed; the herbs had been flattened, roses uprooted, leaves torn off by the force of the wind.
‘All the young figs are down before they’re ripe …’
In the midst of the devastation she saw her mother standing, just looking at the ruin of her garden.
‘All the striped roses,’ Lia mourned, gazing at the wildly strewn petals, once pink and white, now bruised and rain-sodden. ‘There’ll be none left to preserve this year.’
A distant flicker of movement beyond the garden wall caught her eye.
The Watch.
They moved swiftly, purposefully through the churned mud and storm debris.
Lia went running downstairs and out into the garden. The evening air felt wetly cold, chilled by the torrential storm rain.
‘Mother! The Watch! Coming this way!’
Zillaïs merely said, ‘Why didn’t you put on a shawl? You’ll catch cold.’
‘Rahab …’
Someone was calling a name, calling in the far distance. He paid scant attention. He was not Rahab. He was Barakiel; he rode the wings of the storm.
‘Rahab.’
Thunder still rolled and throbbed in his head. Within his skull, distant lightning flickered, flashes of electric blue that seared his senses.
‘RAHAB!’
Rahab forced his eyes open. The light was too bright. He shut his eyes again. ‘Leave me alone,’ he mumbled, turning his head away.
‘Wake up, Rahab. You must wake up.’
Blinking, he obeyed. Faces swam above him, faces in lamplight, human faces, flesh and blood. He tried to make his lips and voice work together. All that he managed was a long, aching groan.
‘Orbiel’s men are in the street,’ A woman’s voice spoke in his ear, softly, insistently. ‘You must go.’
Each word pierced his tender brain like a white-hot needle. He shrank from the pain.
‘You have to take the amulets.’
‘Wh-where?’ he said muzzily.
‘Don’t You remember? To Tifereth. You told me so yourself.’
‘Look at him, Mother, he’s in no fit state to go anywhere!’ A girl’s voice this time, light yet tart. An apple-blossom voice. He remembered that voice … but from where? ‘We’ll have to hide him.’
‘And they’ll pull the place apart searching –’
‘They’ll never find him in papa’s cellar. No one knows about that.’
Hands were touching him, pulling him into an upright position, supporting him. He sagged at the knees.
‘We can’t carry him …’ the light voice complained.
Someone forced a flask between hs lips, leaking liquid into his mouth. The liquid seemed to catch alight, searing his throat. He coughed and gagged.
‘Hurry!’ someone urged.
Then they were dragging him downstairs; his limbs felt as if they were stuffed with sawdust. He lurched drunkenly from side to side, crashing into the wall.
A black hole yawned up to swallow him – he was falling into musty darkness –
Auger Maury had taken the precaution of adding another cellar below the wine cellar. Merchants liked to have a second, secret place to keep their more exclusive merchandise, hidden from any unexpected visits from the Comte’s taxmen.
Lia and Zillaïs half-dragged, half-pulled Rahab down into the wine cellar. The second cellar lay beyond, the door hidden behind the ale cask. It smelt musty, the underground dankness mingled with the perfume of the rare liqueurs Auger stored there: aromatic alquer, mature brandies, bitter absinthe.
Rahab tottered inside and sank to his knees. Zillaïs pressed a little package into his hands, closing his fingers around it.
‘Keep them with you. Don’t come out till we tell you it’s safe.’
She shooed Lia out and shut the door; together they heaved the ale cask back into its usual place and climbed the stairs.
‘Hold still. You’re covered in cobwebs.’ Zillaïs brushed the dusty threads out of Lia’s hair.
There came a pounding on the front door.
‘The Watch! Open up!’
‘The Hawks –’ Lia whispered. ‘They’re here.’
‘Lia.’ Zillaïs caught her daughter by the shoulders. ‘Run to the Belcastels’. Fetch Berengar. We may need his help.’
‘But I can’t leave you here alone to face them –’
‘I’ve faced far worse than Orbiel’s Hawks.’ Zillaïs turned Lia around, propelling her towards the garden door. ‘Now go. Hurry!’
The garden path was slippery with wet leaves and mud; Lia tried to run but kept losing her footing. At last she reached the ivy-grown side-gate that led out into the lane and dared to glance back behind her.
There were figures in the house; she could see them passing to and fro, at the open window of her room. In her room! Indignity rose, quelling her fear for herself, fear for her mother. Those men pawing her clothes, rifling through her belongings –
How dare they!
She would see what Berengar had to say about this!
Zillaïs stared coldly at the intruders.
‘Was it really necessary to break down my front door? If you had given me time to reach the hall, I would have opened it to you. I trust, Captain, that your men will repair the damaged timbers before they leave.’
‘Madame Maury,’ Jaufré d’Orbiel said curtly, ‘we have no time for repairs. We are on the trail of a murderer. We have reason to believe he may be hiding in your house.’
‘In my house!’ Zillaïs allowed herself a small, incredulous smile. ‘I do not make a practice of sheltering criminals.’
‘A man was seen climbing your garden wall. I would not like to think we had gone away and left you and your household unprotected,’ Jaufré’s voice was courteous; yet she thought she detected a strange shadowing in his gaze whenever he looked at her.
‘Search, then, if you must,’ she said. ‘But be sure you put back anything you displace. And do not molest my servants.’
The Hawks dispersed; Zillaïs tried not to wince as she felt the floorboards shudder under their heavy tread. But Jaufré d’Orbiel did not go with his men; he stayed, still looking at her.
‘Can I offer you any refreshment, Captain?’ she said in level tones. She was surprised how easy it was to pretend politeness, in spite of his silent, intense scrutiny.
He shook his head.
‘Now that my men are otherwise occupied, you can speak freely, Madame Maury. Or should I call you by the name of your Tribe? Ithamar?’
For a moment the room went dark. Zillaïs gripped the table to support herself. How had he found out? Who had betrayed her secret?
The door was flung open; Emmenza came hurrying in, her face flushed.
‘Madame, madame, they’re tearing the place apart, they’re ripping open the mattresses, turning out the chests –’ She caught sight of Jaufré d’Orbiel and advanced on him, wagging her finger. ‘I don’t know what you think you’re going to find, but there’s no need to wreck my mistress’s house. You’ll have the master to answer to when he –’
‘When he returns,’ Jaufré finished. ‘How long will that be? Another month or two?’
Emmenza stared at him, open-mouthed, and suddenly burst into tears, loud sobs that shook her large frame.
Zillaïs, grateful that Emmenza had unwittingly caused such an effective distraction, went to her and put her arms around her shaking shoulders.
‘I won’t have you upsetting the members of my household, Captain.’
‘Members? I see only your cook. Where is your daughter Lia?’
‘She has gone to the Belcastels’.’
‘The Belcastels’! I doubt she’ll be welcome there.’
She looked at him and saw that the seemingly casual remark was deliberately intended to wound.
‘Captain!’ called a voice from upstairs. ‘Come look at this!’
‘Madame Maury,’ Jaufré d’Orbiel gestured to her, extending his hand as if he were about to lead her on to the dance floor. ‘Please accompany me.’
Zillaïs swept past him, ignoring the outstretched hand. She was still mistress within this house – and he was an uninvited intruder. What could they have found? She had taken the precaution of burying the shell-shards deep in the compost heap, but as she climbed the stair, her heart thudded so violently in her breast she was afraid Jaufré d’Orbiel would hear it.
‘So? What have you found?’ Jaufré demanded. The veneer of courtesy he had assumed downstairs was peeling away, revealing something more ugly, more dangerous beneath.
They stood on the threshold of Lia’s room. Within, two of the Watch were puzzling over the scorch marks on the floor, the blasted shutters.
Jaufré went in and knelt down, tracing the scorched circle on the floorboards with one hand.
‘A lightning strike,’ Zillaïs said. ‘You saw the force of the storm, Captain.’
‘Oh yes, I saw the force of the storm,’ he said. ‘But this lightning strike seems to have originated within your house.’
‘What you are suggesting,’ Zillaïs said, holding the darkly shadowed gaze, ‘is completely absurd.’
‘I’m afraid, Madame Maury, that I am obliged to exercise the authority vested in me by Comte Aymon and place you under arrest.’
‘Without proof, you cannot hold me against my will.’
‘Oh, you misunderstand me, Madame Maury. I’m arresting you because you are Tsiyonim –’
Zillaïs heard Emmenza’s stifled cry of shock. Years of trust betayed in one offhand remark.
‘– just as I have been obliged to arrest the others of your community. Your presence in Arcassanne constitutes a threat to public order. We are forced to hold you in the Tour de la Justice for your own safety until Comte Aymon decides what is to be done with you.’
‘Mistress –’ Emmenza stretched out both hands to her imploringly. ‘It’s not true, is it?’
Zillaïs took Emmenza’s hands in her own, pressing them.
‘That I am Tsiyonim? Yes, it’s true. Does it alter the good years we have spent together, Emmenza?’
Emmenza shook her head; tears began to roll down her broad cheeks.
‘Wh-what shall I do now? With the master away –’
‘Stay here for Lia. Just do that. Look after her – until I am released.’
She managed a smile to reassure Emmenza, but as the Hawks led her away, a voice whispered in her head, If I am released.
She had escaped with her life once before … this time she was not sure she would be so fortunate.