DAYS PASSED, AND THEY heard nothing about the lost computer or key. It was high summer, and the crusaders’ army tightened their hold on the city; Carcassonne, a mountain fortress with no convenient river nearby, was already perilously close to running short of water. Sometimes Ann heard, or thought she heard, the heavy thud of stones hitting the city walls.

Trencavel had agreed to let Charles look through the castle and had given him one of his guards to help, but none of his searches turned up anything. For once Ann was glad of the drudgery in the kitchen; it kept her from worrying about her possible futures. And the others didn’t seem to want to think about it either; they discussed it only once, after a long hard day in the kitchens. “Do you think Peire Raimon really burned the computer, like he said?” Franny asked.

“Of course not,” Charles said. “He said he would have burned it, not that he did.”

Ann didn’t think that was proof of anything, but as long as they were talking she had another question to ask him. “We have no idea what’s going to happen from this point on, right? I mean, in the history books Trencavel goes to negotiate with the crusaders, and they spare the city, mostly.”

“They killed the Cathars,” Charles said. “And they drove everyone else out, without their clothes or possessions.”

He’d missed the point completely. “Yeah, but they let them back in,” she said impatiently. “What I mean is, in this timeline he doesn’t negotiate with them, so anything could happen. They could kill us all, make an example of us the way they did in Béziers.”

“Don’t worry—we’ll find the computer before then,” Charles said.

“What about the company?” Franny asked. “Won’t they realize something’s wrong and start looking for us?”

Ann hadn’t even thought of that. But the company could only find them using the cameras, and they could only view the cameras after they’d retrieved them from the past. And didn’t she and the others need to be outside for the cameras to pick them up? She decided not to say anything, though; it was probably good for them to stay optimistic.

“Of course,” Charles said. “That’s a possibility too.”

The next day Trencavel invited them to dinner. Charles was happy for the invitation; he would be able to make sure the viscount had become a Cathar. Ann didn’t see what difference it would make, though. If he hadn’t converted, there was probably nothing they could do about it now.

“We won’t be having a grand meal, I’m afraid,” the viscount said, when they’d seated themselves in the smaller banquet hall. His clothes were simpler than before, but still not the plain black that his cousin had worn. He’d been carrying a book when he came in, his finger stuck between the pages, and now it lay on the table next to him. “We have to save most of our food for the siege ahead.”

“Of course, my lord,” Charles said. “But—well, forgive me if my question is too bold, but I’ve heard another reason for your simpler feasts. There are rumors that you’ve become a Cathar.”

“By heaven, I’m surprised you haven’t become one yourself,” Trencavel said. “Anyone would, after seeing that angel, hearing what he had to say.” He pulled down his collar, and Ann saw that someone had embroidered a design in black thread there. Cathars had taken to wearing black near their skin, hiding their identity in case the crusaders invaded.

“That’s one of the reasons I’ve invited you here, to get your opinion,” Trencavel went on. “You saw it too, am I right? It was an angel, telling me to change my life.”

“I’m certain it was, my lord.”

“But then—why haven’t you converted?”

“I will, after all this is over.”

Trencavel looked satisfied. “Anyway, I want you to know that I’m not being stingy with my fare because I’m a Cathar now. People can eat whatever they like—I don’t mind. No, the stinginess is because I have to prepare for war.”

“I understand, my lord.”

“It’s strange, you know, this whole religious thing. People still expect me to guzzle like a pig, and rut like a stallion. They don’t know how to treat me. Well, except for my cousin. She’s delighted, as you can imagine.”

A serving girl brought out a pitcher of water for the viscount, and another pitcher of wine for everyone else. Ann recognized the girl from the kitchen and smiled at her, and she nodded back.

“Except that she tells me that a Cathar cannot kill another soul,” Trencavel said. Who? Ann thought. Right, he was still talking about his cousin. “She has no idea what it’s like to rule here, even a few towns. I can’t just sit back and let the crusaders overrun Carcassonne, especially after what they did to Béziers. I have to think about my people. If that makes me less than perfect, then so be it.”

The kitchen girl poured his water. “And my wife,” Trencavel went on. “She’s still going off to Peire Raimon a couple of nights a week. And she thinks I disapprove, when truthfully I don’t care at all. It gives her something to do, at least.”

“You don’t care?” Ann asked. “Really?”

He looked across the table at her. “That’s right—I forgot,” he said. “Outsiders don’t understand how we do things here—they’re always either confused or horrified. Our marriages are made for us by our parents, to join us to other powerful families. And we do our duty, we produce heirs and make sure that the line goes on. But if we weren’t allowed to take our pleasure, to choose our own lovers, we’d turn mad, or violent.” He paused, seeming to realize that what he’d said was at odds with his new beliefs. “Well, until we grow up, anyway. Until we realize that this world doesn’t matter.”

He seemed so open that Ann decided to risk another question. “So your wife really did give Peire Raimon that necklace.”

“Oh, I’m sure she did. An extravagant present, but then she does seem to like him.”

The viscount studied her gravely, giving her his whole attention. No one had ever looked at her like that, not even the professors at the company. Was it because women had status here, because their opinions mattered? Or did he treat every woman the same out of habit, flattering them automatically because he might want to bed them someday? Her face felt hot and she turned away, hoping he hadn’t noticed.

“Well, maybe she’ll convert too, sooner or later,” Trencavel said. “Though she didn’t see the angel, she can’t really understand.” He picked up the book near his plate. “My cousin gave me this—she thinks it might help.”

The cover was just a thick leather binding, with no title or other information. The first page, though, had a long title in illustrated calligraphy, something to do with Genesis.

He turned the page and began to read, a long confusing passage about the creation of the world. At the beginning there was light, or maybe Light, and its emanation Wisdom, who was female, and then some more Lights, or maybe Aeons, and then finally Wisdom created an emanation without the support of the others, called Ialdabaoth. Ialdabaoth turned out to be the creator of this world, but because he was imperfect, without Wisdom, the world was also imperfect, lacking.

Ann lost the thread after that, and began to think about other things. Meret had tracked a version of Genesis in Alexandria, she remembered. The books saved from the library had been scattered throughout the world, to Byzantium, Baghdad, Spain. Had one of them made its way here, and caused a heresy to catch fire? But why would the company want to support the Cathars, to strengthen their beliefs?

AUGUST THE FIFTEENTH CAME, the day Trencavel had gone to the crusaders’ camp. In this timeline, though, he stayed in the castle and continued to plan for war. Although they were heavily outnumbered by the crusaders, and everyone had heard about the atrocity at Béziers, he still seemed confident, rallying his soldiers, listening to their boasts and worries, making them laugh.

The cooks and kitchen boys and girls were more pessimistic, though, whispering about a new terror, a brilliant northern commander named Simon de Montfort. They barely talked to each other, speaking mostly to give orders, working with their heads down.

“We’ll be safe here,” Ann heard one young man tell another. “The angel will guard us, after all.”

Angel? She put down the knife she was using to chop onions. “What are you talking about?” she asked.

“We have an angel’s relic,” he said, his face placid. “It’ll keep us safe from the northerners.”

“What kind of relic? Where?”

“My friend Guilhem has it. He saw an angel appear near the forest, and after it disappeared he found a—a thing it had left behind. A ball made of metal, with more balls inside it. A map of the heavens, with circles nested within circles, and the outermost the most perfect.”

She was surprised at the man’s eloquence, and wondered if he could be a Cathar. She would have never thought of the key as an image of the heavens.

“Where’s Guilhem now?”

“I don’t know. He lives on the street with the church of St. Michael, heading away from the market square. It’s the shoemaker’s shop—he’s a cobbler. But he could be in the castle with everyone else.”

She left the kitchen and ran down the corridor, then hurried through a series of public rooms. She’d found the key—they might still get away, leave this tace behind them forever. Where was Charles?

She found him in their rooms, practicing on his lute. She was panting from her run and had to stop a moment, take several deep breaths, but finally she managed to tell him what the kitchen boy had said. “Go get the others,” he said. “And then we’ll find Guilhem.”

Franny and Jerry were still in the kitchens, and she hurried back to them. Then another run through the castle, all three of them this time, and finally they were all together in their room, gathered around Charles.

“Ann and Franny, you go out into the city, try to find this man,” Charles said. “Do you know where the market square is?” They both nodded. “And Jerry and I will look through the castle, see if he came here.”

He gave them a handful of coins to bargain with. “Although,” he said, “if Guilhem truly thinks the key was left by an angel, he might not want to give it up for any price.”

None of the guards said anything as they walked out of the main door. Apparently people here were free to go if they wanted, though the expressions on the guards’ faces said that they were crazy to leave the protection of the castle.

A loud crash sounded as they went down the road into the city. They both startled, and then Ann laughed. “It’s just the catapults, throwing stones against the walls,” she said.

“Just?” Franny said.

“I thought it was a bomb. That’s one thing to be grateful for, anyway, that they don’t have modern technology.”

“They can do a lot of damage with what they have. You heard them in the kitchen—Simon de Montfort is here. Remember him?”

“Of course.” Montfort had shown his abilities as a military tactician at the beginning of the crusade and had been promoted from the ranks. He would go on to win nearly all of the Languedoc for the northerners, and be given Trencavel’s titles of Viscount of Béziers and Carcassonne.

“And it’s nowhere near the time he dies,” Franny said. Montfort had been—would be—killed nine years from now, when the defenders of Toulouse threw a catapult stone back at the crusaders’ army. According to legend, it was the women and children on the walls who threw the stone.

“Well, we don’t know when he dies in this timeline,” Ann said. “He didn’t have to invade Carcassonne in the history we know about—he could die in the fighting hern.” She paused, thinking. “Doesn’t it seem like the company is changing a lot more than they usually do, in this tace?”

Franny nodded. “I thought of that too. Anything can happen now—anyone can die, even people who survived in our timeline. Well, they must know what they’re doing, up on the fifth floor.”

They had come to a confusion of streets and pathways, what would look like a child’s scribble on a map. Walls leaned outward, creating pools of shadows that kept out the heat from the sun.

“We should be paying more attention here,” Franny said. “I think the market square is back that way.”

They turned around and reached the empty market square. A few banners hung listlessly in the hot air, and Ann could smell cattle dung, but the market itself was deserted.

They reached the street the church was on, then turned right, away from the market. “What does a shoemaker’s shop look like in this tace?” Franny asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it has a big old sign in the shape of a shoe. Like this sign here.”

Franny looked up and saw the sign, then bumped her hip against Ann’s, delighted. “Oh, thank God,” she said.

They knocked on the door. “Who’s there?” someone called out.

“Guilhem?” Ann asked. “We’d like to see the angel’s relic.”

Guilhem opened the door a crack, then swung it wider when he saw the two women. “Of course,” he said. “Come in.”

He led them through his front room, a cobbler’s workshop. Wooden feet stuck up into the air, guides to shoe sizes; they looked like people buried head down, only their feet showing. They passed sheets of leather laid out on counters, and knives and needles and thick, heavy thread. The smell of leather saturated the air.

Guilhem reached under a counter and brought out the key. “Can I—can I hold it?” Ann asked.

“No,” Guilhem said. He set it down on the counter. “It’s a holy object—I don’t want it to lose its virtue with too much handling.”

“The Church of St. Michael sent us,” Ann said, the idea coming to her at that moment. Franny, she was gratified to see, revealed only a small start of surprise, and then schooled her face to show nothing. “They want us to buy the relic from you, so all of Carcassonne can benefit from it.”

“It’s not for sale. I was the one the angel chose—he must have had a reason for it. I can’t possibly give it to you, or anyone else.”

“You have to,” Franny said. “The city’s under siege—you know that. All of us need the angel’s help, his blessing, not just you. You have to share it with the rest of us.”

“No, I don’t.” His face grew sly. “How do I know you’re from the church, anyway? I’ve never seen you there. And why wouldn’t the fathers come themselves, instead of sending two women—and two women I’ve never seen before, with outlandish accents?”

Ann felt a desperate impatience. The key was so close, almost within her grasp. “You’re being selfish,” she said. “What happens when the army invades? You’ll get the luck of it, and everyone else will die, will be killed. You’ll be condemned to hell for your greed.”

“I want the fathers to tell me that, like I said. Anyway, the army won’t invade. The relic will protect us, that and the strong walls.”

At that moment, almost as if he had called them up, loud voices rose from further down the hillside. A trumpet sounded, and another answered. Someone screamed.

“They’re here,” Ann said.