“Shall we sit outside?” Audric suggested. “At least until the heat becomes too much.”

“That would be lovely,” Alice replied, following him out of the little house. She felt like she was in a dream. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. The vastness of the mountains, the acres of sky, Baillard’s slow and deliberate movements.

Alice felt the strain and confusion of the past few days slipping away from her.

This will do well,“ he said in his gentle voice, stopping by a small grassy mound. Baillard sat down with his long, thin legs straight out in front of him like a boy.

Alice hesitated, then sat at his feet. She drew her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around her legs, then saw he was smiling again.

“What?” she said, self-conscious suddenly.

Audric just shook his head. “Los ressons.” The echoes. “Forgive me, Madomaisela Tanner. Forgive an old man his foolishness.”

Alice didn’t know what had made him smile so, only that she was happy to see it. “Please, call me Alice. Madomaisela sounds so formal.”

He inclined his head. “Very well.”

“You speak Occitan rather than French?” she asked.

“Both, yes.”

“Others too?”

He smiled self-deprecatingly. “English, Arabic, Spanish, Hebrew. Stories shift their shape, change character, take on different colours depending on the words you use, the language in which you choose to tell them. Sometimes more serious, sometimes more playful, more melodic, say. Here, in this part of what they now call France, the langue d’Oc was spoken by the people whose land this was. The langue d’oil, the forerunner of modern-day French, was the language of the invaders. Such choices divided people.” He waved his hands. “But, this is not what you came to hear. You want people, not theories, yes?

It was Alice’s turn to smile. “I read one of your books, Monsieur Baillard, which I found at my aunt’s house in Salleles d’Aude.”

He nodded. “It’s a beautiful place. The Canal de Jonction. Lime trees and pin parasols line the banks.” He paused. “The leader of the Crusade, Arnald-Amalric, was given a house in Salleles, you know? Also, in Carcassona and Besiers.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Before, when I first arrived, you said Alais did not die before her time. She… did she survive the fall of Carcassonne?”

Alice was surprised to realise her heart was beating fast.

Baillard nodded. “Alais left Carcassona in the company of a boy, Sajhe, the grandson of one of the guardians of the Labyrinth Trilogy.” He raised his eyes to see if she was following, then continued when she indicated she was.

“They were heading here,” he said. “In the old language Los Seres means the mountain crests, the ridges.”

“Why here?”

“The Navigataire, the leader of the Noublesso de los Seres, the society to which Alais’ father and Sajhe’s grandmother had sworn allegiance, was waiting for them here. Since Alais feared she was being pursued, they took an indirect route, first heading west to Fanjeaux, then south to Puivert and Lavelanet, then west again towards the Sabarthes Mountains.

With the fall of Carcassona, there were soldiers everywhere. They swarmed all over our land like rats. There were also bandits who preyed on the refugees without pity. Alais and Sajhe travelled early in the morning and late at night, sheltering from the biting sun in the heat of the day. It was a particularly hot summer, so they slept outdoors when night fell. They survived on nuts, berries, fruit, anything they could forage. Alais avoided the towns, except when she was sure of finding a safe house.“

“How did they know where to go?” asked Alice, remembering her own journey only hours earlier.

“Sajhe had a map, given to him…”

His voice cracked with distress. Alice didn’t know why, but she reached: and took his hand. It seemed to give him comfort.

“They made good progress,” he continued, “arriving in Los Seres shortly before the Feast Day of Sant-Miquel, at the end of September, just as the land was turning to gold. Already here, in the mountains, was the smell of autumn and wet earth. The smoke hung over the fields as the stubble burned. It was a new world to them, who had been brought up in the shadows and alleyways and overcrowded halls of Carcassona. Such light. Such skies that reached, as it seemed, all the way to heaven.” He paused as he looked out over the landscape in front of them. “You understand?”

She nodded, mesmerised by his voice.

“Harif, the Navigataire, was waiting for them.” Baillard bowed his head. “When he heard all that had happened, he wept for the soul of Alais’ father and for Simeon too. For the loss of the books and for Esclarmonde’s generosity in letting Alais and Sajhe travel on without her to better secure the safety of the Book of Words.”

Baillard stopped again and, for a while, was silent. Alice did not want to interrupt or hurry him. The story would tell itself. He would speak when he was ready.

His face softened. “It was a blessed time, both in the mountains and on the plains, or at first so it seemed. Despite the indescribable horror of the defeat of Besiers, many Carcassonnais believed they would soon be allowed to return home. Many trusted in the Church. They thought that if the heretics were expelled, then their lives would be returned to them.”

“But the Crusaders did not leave,” she said.

Baillard shook his head. “It was a war for land, not faith,” he said. “After the Ciutat was defeated in August 1209, Simon de Montfort was elected viscount, despite the fact that Raymond-Roger Trencavel still lived. To modern minds, it is hard to understand how unprecedented, how grave an offence this was. It went against all tradition and honour. War was financed, in part, by the ransoms paid by one noble family to another. Unless convicted of a crime, a seigneur’s lands would never be confiscated and given to another. There could have been no clearer indication of the contempt in which the northerners held the Pays d’Oc”

What happened to Viscount Trencavel?“ Alice asked. ”I see him remembered everywhere in the Cite.“

Baillard nodded. “He is worthy of remembrance. He died – was murdered – after three months of incarceration in the prisons of the Chateau Comtal, in November 1209. De Montfort published it that he had died of siege sickness, as it was known. Dysentery. No one believed it. There were sporadic uprisings and outbreaks of unrest, until de Montfort was forced to grant Raymond-Roger’s two-year-old son and heir an annual allowance of 3,000 sols in return for the legal surrender of the viscounty.”

A face suddenly flashed into Alice’s mind. A devout, serious woman, pretty, devoted to her husband and son.

“Dame Agnes,” she muttered.

Baillard held her in his gaze for a moment. “She too is remembered within the walls of the Ciutat,” he said quietly. “De Montfort was a devout Catholic. He – perhaps only he – of the Crusaders believed he was doing God’s work. He established a tax of house or hearth in favour of the Church, introduced tithes on the first fruits, northern ways.

“The Ciutat might have been defeated, but the fortresses of the Minervois, the Montagne Noire, the Pyrenees refused to surrender. The King of Aragon, Pedro, would not accept him as a vassal; Raymond VI, uncle to Viscount Trencavel, withdrew to Toulouse; the Counts of Never and Saint-Pol, others such as Guy d’Evreux, returned north. Simon de Montfort had possession of Carcassona, but he was isolated.

“Merchants, peddlers, weavers brought news of sieges and battles, good and bad. Montreal, Preixan, Saverdun, Pamiers fell, Cabaret was holding out. In the spring of April 1210, after three months of siege, de Montfort took the town of Bram. He ordered his soldiers to round up the defeated garrison and had their eyes put out. Only one man was spared, charged with leading the mutilated procession cross-country to Cabaret, a clear warning to any who resisted that they could expect no mercy.