He nodded. “Two days past, Dame.”

“It is Wednesday,” she murmured, aghast. She had lost two days. She frowned. “When they left, Francois, did my father not question why I was not there to bid him farewell?”

“He did, Dame, but… he forbade me wake you.”

This makes no sense. “But what of my husband? Did Guilhem not say I never returned to our chamber that night?”

“I believe Chevalier du Mas spent the early part of the night at the forge, Dame, then attended the service of blessing with Viscount Trencavel in the chapel. He seemed as surprised by your absence as Intendant Pelletier, and besides…”

He broke off.

“Go on. Say what is in your mind, Francois. I will not blame you.”

“With your leave, Dame, I think Chevalier du Mas would not wish to appear ignorant of your whereabouts before your father.”

The moment the words were out of his mouth, Alai’s knew he was right. At present the ill-feeling between her husband and father was worse than ever. Alais tightened her lips, not wishing to betray her agreement.

“But they were taking such a risk,” she said, returning to the attack. “To carry out such an assault on me in the heart of the Chateau Comtal was madness enough. To compound their felony by taking me captive… How could they have hoped to get away with it?”

She pulled herself up short, realizing what she had said.

“Everybody was much occupied, Dame. The curfew was not set. So although the Western Gate was closed, the Eastern Gate stood open all night. It would have been easy for two men to transport you between them, provided your face, your clothing, were hidden. There were many ladies… women, I mean, of the sort…”

Alai’s stifled a grin. “Thank you, Francois. I quite understand your point.”

The smile faded from her face. She needed to think, decide what she should do next. She was more confused than ever. And her ignorance of why things had happened, in the manner they had, compounded her fear. It is hard to act against a faceless enemy.

“It would be well to circulate it that I can remember nothing of the attack,

Francois,“ she said after a while. ”That way if my assailants remain within the chateau, they will have no need to feel threatened.“

The thought of making the same journey back across the courtyard chilled her soul. Besides, she would not sleep under the eyes of Oriane’s nurse. Alais had no doubt she was set to spy on her and report to her sister.

“I will rest here for what remains of the night,” she added.

To her surprise, Francois looked horrified. “But, Dame, it is not seemly for you-”

“I’m sorry to put you from your bed,” she said, softening her command with a smile, “but my sleeping companion in my chamber is not to my liking.” An impassive, shuttered look descended over his face. “But if you could stay close by, Francois, in case I have further need of you, I would be grateful.”

He did not return her smile. “As you wish, Dame.”

Alais stared at him for a moment, then decided she was reading too much into his manner. She asked him to light the lamp, then she dismissed him.

As soon as Francois had gone, Alais curled up in the center of her father’s bed. Alone again, the pain of Guilhem’s absence returned like a dull ache. She tried to summon his face to her mind, his eyes, the line of his jaw, but his features blurred and would not stay fixed. Alais knew this inability to find his image in her mind was borne of anger. Over and over, she reminded herself Guilhem had been only fulfilling his responsibilities as a chevalier. He had not acted wrongly or falsely. In fact, he had acted appropriately. On the eve of so important a mission, his duty was to his liege lord and to those making the journey with him, not to his wife. Yet, however many times Alais told herself this, she could not quieten the voices in her head. Whatever she said made no difference to what she felt. That when she’d had need of Guilhem’s protection, he had failed her. Unjust as it was, she blamed Guilhem.

If her absence had been discovered at first light, then the men might have been caught.

And my father would not have left thinking ill of me.

In a deserted farm outside Aniane, in the flat, fertile lands to the west of Montpellier, an elderly Cathar parfait and his eight credentes, believers, crouched in the corner of a barn, behind a collection of old harnesses for oxen and mules.

One of the men was badly wounded. Gray and pink flesh flopped open around the white splintered bones that had been his face. His eye had been dislodged from its socket by the force of the kick that had shattered his cheek. Blood congealed around the gaping hole. His friends had refused to leave him when the house in which they had gathered to pray had been attacked by a small, renegade group of soldiers that had broken away from the French army.

But he had slowed them down and lost them the advantage of knowing the land. All day the Crusaders had hunted them. Night had not saved them and now they were trapped. The Cathars could hear them shouting in the courtyard, the sound of dry wood catching light. They were preparing a pyre.

The parfait knew they were facing the end. There would be no mercy from men such as this, driven by hatred and ignorance and bigotry. There had never been an army the like of it on Christian soil. The parfait would not have believed it had he not seen it with his own eyes. He’d been traveling south, on a parallel course with the Host. He had seen the huge and unwieldy barges floating down the River Rhone, carrying equipment and supplies, as well as wooden chests ringed with bands of steel that contained precious holy relics to bless the expedition. The hooves of thousands of animals and men riding alongside created a giant cloud of dust, which floated above the Host.

From the start, townspeople and villagers had shut their gates, watching from behind their walls and praying that the army would pass them by. Stories of increasing violence and horror circulated. There were reports of farms being burned, reprisals for farmers who had refused to allow the soldiers to pillage their land. Cathar believers, denounced as heretics, had been burned at the stake in Puylaroque. The entire Jewish community of Montelimar, men, women and children, had been put to the sword and their bleeding heads mounted on spikes outside the city walls, carrion for the crows.

In Saint-Paul deTrois Chateaux, a parfait was crucified by a small band of Gascon routiers. They tied him to a makeshift cross made from two pieces of wood lashed together with rope and hammered nails through his hands. The weight of his body dragged him down, but he still would not recant or apostatize his faith. In the end, bored with the slow death, the soldiers disemboweled him and left him to rot.

These and other acts of barbarism were either denied by the abbott of Citeaux and the French barons or else disclaimed as the work of a few renegades. But as he crouched in the dark, the parfait knew that the words of lords, priests and papal legates counted for nothing out here. He could smell the bloodlust on the breath of the men who had hunted them down to this small corner of the Devil’s earthly creation.

He recognized Evil.

All he could do now was try to save the souls of his believers so they could look upon the face of God. Their passing from this world into the next would not be gentle.

The wounded man was still conscious. He whimpered softly, but a final stillness had come over him and his skin was tinged with the grayness of death. The parfait laid his hands upon the man’s head as he administered the last rites of their religion and spoke the words of the consolament.