“Messire, I am sorry.”

We were as brothers,“ he continued. ”Alzeu too. Barely a month separated us in age. We stood for each other, worked to pay for our hauberks and swords. We were dubbed the same Passiontide.“

“I know it,” she said softly, drawing his head down to hers. “Come, let me help you, then I will do what I can for Thierry.”

She saw his eyes glistened with tears. She hurried on, knowing he did not want her to see him cry.

“Guilhem, come,” she said softly. Take me to him.“

Thierry had been taken to the Great Hall with all the others who were wounded. The lines of dying and injured men were three deep, and the other women did what they could. With her hair wound into a plait over her shoulder, she looked no more than a child.

As the hours passed, the air in the confined chamber grew more putrid the flies more persistent. For the most part, Alais and the other women worked in silence and with steady determination, knowing that it would be little respite before the assault began anew. Priests stepped between the lines of dying and injured soldiers, hearing confession, giving last rites. Beneath the disguise of their dark robes, two parfaits administered the consolament to the Cathar believers.

Thierry’s injuries were serious. He’d been struck several times. His ankle was broken and a lance had pierced his thigh, shattering the bone inside the leg. Alais knew he had lost too much blood, but for Guilhem’s did everything she could. She heated a decoction of knitbone root and leaves in hot wax, and then applied it in a compress once it had cooled.

Leaving Guilhem to sit with him, Alais turned her attention to those who had the best chance of survival. She dissolved powder of angelica root in carduus water and with the help of scullions from the kitchen carrying the liquid in pails, she spooned the medicine into the mouths of any who could swallow. If she could keep infection at bay and their blood stayed pure, then their wounds had a chance of healing.

Alais returned to Thierry whenever she could to refresh the dressings, even though it was clear there was no hope. He was no longer conscious and his skin had taken on the blue-white taint of death. She put her hand Guilhem’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “It won’t be long now.”

Guilhem only nodded.

Alais worked her way to the far end of the hall. As she passed, a young chevalier, little older than she was, cried out. She stopped and knelt down beside him. His child’s face was creased with pain and confusion, his lips were cracked and his eyes, which had once been brown, were tortured with fear.

“Hush,” she murmured. “Do you have no one?”

He tried to shake his head. Alais smoothed his brow with her hand and lifted the cloth that covered his shield arm. Immediately, she let it drop.

The boy’s shoulder was crushed. Fragments of white bone jutted through torn skin, like a wreck at low tide. There was a gaping hole in his side. Blood was flowing steadily from the wound, creating a pool where he lay.

His right hand was frozen around the hilt of his sword. Alais tried to ease it from his grasp, but his rigid fingers would not let it go. Alais ripped a piece of material from her skirt and plugged the deep wound. From a vial in her purse, she took a tincture of valerian and dropped two measures on to his lips to ease the pain of his passing. There was nothing else she could do.

Death was unkind. It came slowly. Gradually, the rattling in his chest grew louder as his breathing became laboured. As his eyes darkened, his terror grew and he cried out. Alais stayed with him, singing to him and stroking his brow until his soul left his body.

“God take your soul,” she whispered, closing his eyes. She covered his face, then moved on to the next.

Alais worked all day, administering ointment and dressing wounds until her eyes ached and her hands were streaked red with blood. At the end of the day, shafts of evening sunlight broke through the high windows of the Great Hall. The dead had been taken away. The living were as comfortable as their injuries permitted.

She was exhausted, but thoughts of the night before, lying once more in Guilhem’s arms, sustained her. Her bones ached and her back was stiff from bending and crouching, but it no longer seemed to matter.

Taking advantage of the frenzy of activity in the rest of the Chateau Comtal, Oriane slipped away to her chamber to wait for her informer.

“About time,” she snapped. “Tell me what you have discovered.”

“The Jew died before we learned much, although my lord believes that he had already given his book into your father’s safekeeping.”

Oriane gave a half smile, but said nothing. She had confided in no one what she had discovered sewn into Alais’ cloak.

“What of Esclarmonde de Servian?”

“She was brave, but in the end she told him where the book would be found.”

Oriane’s green eyes flashed. “And you have it?”

“Not yet.”

“But it is within the Ciutat? Lord Evreux knows this?”

“He is relying on you, Dame, to provide him with that information.”

Oriane thought a moment. The old woman is dead? The boy too? She cannot interfere in our plans? She cannot get word to my father.“

He gave a tight smile. The woman is dead. The brat eludes us, although I do not believe he can do any damage. When I find him, we will kill him.“

Oriane nodded. “And you told Lord Evreux of my… interest.”

“I did, Dame. He was honoured that you should consider being of service in such a way.”

“And my terms? He will arrange safe passage out of the Ciutat?”

“Provided you deliver the books to him, Dame, he will.”

She stood up and started to pace. “Good, this is all good. And you can deal with my husband?”

“If you tell me when and where he will be at the given hour, Dame, easily.” He paused. “It will, however, be more costly than before. The risks are considerably higher, even in such times of unrest. Viscount Trencavel’s escrivan. He is a man of status.”

“I’m well aware of that,” she snapped in a cold voice. “How much?”

“Three times what was paid for Raoul,” he replied.

“That’s impossible!” she said immediately. “I cannot possibly lay my hands on that amount of gold.”

“Nevertheless, Dame, that is my price.”

“And the book?”

This time, he smiled properly. “That is a matter for separate negotiation, Dame,” he said.

The bombardment resumed and continued into the night, a steady thud of missiles, rock and stone, which sent clouds of dust into the air when a strike was made.

From her window, Alais could see that the dwellings on the plains had been reduced to smoking rubble. A noxious cloud was hovering above the tops of the trees like a black mist, as if caught in the branches. Some of the inhabitants had made it across the open ground to the rubble of Sant-Vicens and, from there, had sought refuge in the Cite. But most had been cut down as they fled.

In the chapel the candles burned on the altar.

At dawn on Tuesday the fourth of August, Viscount Trencavel and Bertrand Pelletier mounted the ramparts once more.

The French camp was shrouded in the early-morning river mist. Tents, stables, animals, pavilions, an entire city seemed to have taken root, Pelletier looked up. It would be another fiercely hot day. The loss of the river so early in the siege was devastating. Without water, they could not out for long. Drought would defeat them, even if the French did not.

Yesterday, Alais told him there was rumour of the first case of siege sickness reported in the quartier around the Porte de Rodez, which had most of the refugees from Sant-Vicens. He had gone to see for himself and although the Consul of the quartier had denied it, he feared I was right.