GAUL
COUZANIUM
AUGUST AD 342
Arinius emerged from his stone shelter to another perfect morning. A gentle wind whispered in the air and the dawn sky was an endless pale blue. All around him the colours of summer were now painted bright. Yellow Ulex gallii, its scent gentle in the dawn, the tiny pink heads of orchids blinking out from between the grasslands. Three days had passed since the storm, and, although he sensed a change in the air, a hint of more rain to come, there was not a cloud to be seen.
He turned to face the sun. Arinius no longer kneeled to pray, but rather stood with his arms outstretched and his face lifted to heaven. He thought of his brother monks observing Lauds in the cool grey spaces of the community in Lugdunum and did not envy them their confinement.
‘In the morning, Lord, I offer you my prayer.’
He no longer needed the tolling of the bell in the forum to remind him of his obligations. Now, after his months alone with God, Arinius spoke words of his own devising. He gave thanks for the new day, for his safe delivery through the storm, for the sanctuary of the gentle and hospitable land in which he found himself.
‘Amen,’ he said, making the sign of the cross with the fingers of his right hand. ‘Amen.’
When his offices were over, Arinius went back inside to fetch his bag. He broke his fast with the victuals he had purchased in Couzanium: a portion of wheaten bread ground with millet, a handful of walnuts, washed down with the posca infused with the memory of the wine he had bought from the merchant. The iridescent glass glinted in the morning sunlight, reflecting blue and green and silver.
The young monk sat and looked out across the valley. At the earth slashed through with red iron ore on the hills on the far side of the river, the expanse of grassland and woods. The land was evidently rich with fruit and nuts and, last night’s storm notwithstanding, it seemed to be a tranquil place to rest a while. To prepare for the final stage of his journey into the mountains.
As the sun rose higher in the sky, Arinius decided to prepare his writing materials. He did not want to carry his tools into the mountains, only those things he would need for the journey. He got out the square of spun wool he had purchased in the travelling market in Couzanium and spread the yellow-white yarn flat on the ground. Grasping the iron handle of his hunting knife, he began to cut the fabric into squares.
It was hard and repetitive work. He felt the sweat pooling in the hollow at the base of his throat and on the back of his neck. The muscles at the top of his arm and in his shoulders began to complain, to ache. From time to time he paused to add another cut section to the pile, before returning to the diminishing square of fabric.
Finally, he had finished. He stood up to stretch his legs, clenching and unclenching his fingers. He drank the last of the posca, ate another portion of bread, then gathered his basket to go out in search of the materials he required for the next stage of the operation. In the community in Lugdunum, Arinius had been taught to create a form of ink, a mixture of iron salt and nutgall, and a gum from pine resin. He hoped in this valley to be able to find everything he needed. The liquid looked blue-black when it was first used, but quickly faded to a pale brown. He also needed to find the right sort of feather to fashion a crude reed pen. In the past he had tried crow’s feathers and those of geese, but through trial and error had discovered that blackbirds’ feathers were the easiest to use.
With the Codex still carried beneath his tunic, and his leather bag over his shoulder once more, Arinius ventured out into the valley to find what he needed.
COUSTAUSSA
AUGUST 1942
Sandrine took the shopping list Monsieur Baillard had written and cycled down to Couiza. The storm had cleared the air and the morning was fresh and pleasant. A few clouds, the trees green and glistening on the horizon, the sky an endless blue. The sort of day one remembers.
Marieta seemed none the worse for her ordeal, but Sandrine wanted to let Marianne know what had happened all the same. By ten o’clock she was again standing in a slow-moving queue in the post office. Although the phone rang in the rue du Palais, no one answered. It meant she would have to try again.
On her way out, she stopped in front of the poster. Raoul’s face stared blindly at her. Stay away, she whispered under her breath, even though before she’d been desperate for him to come to Coustaussa.
‘Villainous-looking creature,’ a woman said.
‘Do you think so?’ replied Sandrine, keeping her voice steady.
She went to each of the shops in turn, then pushed her heavily laden bicycle home, past gardens filled with vegetables beneath wire cages guarded by old women. No one grew flowers any more, only food to eat. Past the electricity substation. The door was ajar, revealing the white porcelain shields protecting the connectors on the upper storey, like a row of upturned vases.
It was hotter now and there was little shade on the steepest part of the hill. Sandrine turned over in her mind the many things Monsieur Baillard had told her. While he was talking, she had accepted everything he said without question. Now, in the bright light of a summer’s morning, the whole conversation seemed like a dream.
A ghost army?
Of course she didn’t believe it was real, couldn’t believe it was real. But did he? Sandrine wasn’t sure.
Even after a few hours’ acquaintance, she understood how Monsieur Baillard gave the same weight to stories of antiquity as he did to those things that had happened yesterday or the day before that. But whatever he believed, the consequences of the hunt for the Codex, on both sides, were real enough.
She cleared the crest of the hill, then stopped and looked around, casting her eye to each of the four points of the compass. Rennes-les-Bains to the south-east, Couiza to the west, the turrets and towers of Carcassonne many kilometres to the north, out of sight. And ahead, Coustaussa. From this distance, everything looked as it always had. She’d been to Paris once, to Toulouse and to Narbonne, but no further than that. These were the foundations on which her life was built.
If Monsieur Baillard was right and the Nazis crossed the line, the tranquillity of the valley would be lost for ever. Of the Aude. She would not let that happen. She would fight to stop it happening.
‘Live free or die,’ she said, remembering the placard the old veteran had carried at the Bastille Day demonstration.
It seemed a lifetime ago. Sandrine understood what was at stake now. She understood what it meant to resist. Whether she was here in Coustaussa, or back in Carcassonne with Marianne and Suzanne. With Raoul.
Last night she had listened and listened to what Monsieur Baillard was telling her. Now her mind buzzed with questions, like flies in a jar, one question above all others. Monsieur Baillard had said the Codex had been called upon once before. More than a thousand years ago.
Was it true? And if it was, what had happened to the Codex over the intervening years? Lost again? Now to be found once more? Despite the heat of noon, Sandrine felt goosebumps prickling on her skin.
‘Vivre libre ou mourir,’ she repeated.