Labyrinth

CHAPTER 57

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.

“You are deep in thought, my friend.”

Bertrand turned to face him. “Forgive me, Messire.”

Trencavel waved away his apology. “Look at them, Bertrand! They are to many for us to defeat… and without water.”

Pedro II of Aragon is said to be only a day’s ride away,“ Pelletier said. ”You are his vassal, Messire. He is bound to come to your aid.“

Pellitier knew an appeal would be difficult – Pedro was a staunch Catholic and also brother-in-law to Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse, even though there was no love lost between the two men. Still the historic bond between the House of Trencavel and the House of Aragon was strong.

“The King’s diplomatic ambitions are closely tied up with the fate of Carcassona, Messire. He has no wish to see the Pays d’Oc controlled by the French.” He paused. “Pierre-Roger de Cabaret and your allies support this course of action.”

Trencavel placed his hands on the wall in front of him.

“They have said so, yes.”

“So you will send word?”

Pedro heeded the call and arrived late in the afternoon of Wednesday the fifth of August.

“Open the gates! Open the gates for lo Rei!”

The gates of the Chateau Comtal were thrown open. Alais was drawn to her window by the noise and ran down to see what was happening. At first, she intended only to ask for news. But when she looked up at the windows of the Great Hall high above her, her curiosity at what was taking place inside got the better of her. Too often she heard news third or fourth-hand.

There was a small alcove behind the curtains that separated the Great Hall from the entrance to Viscount Trencavel’s private quarters. Alais had not tried to get inside the space since she was a girl and would creep down to eavesdrop on her father as he worked. She wasn’t sure if she’d even be able to slip into the narrow gap.

Alais climbed up on the stone bench and reached for the lowest window of the Tour Pinte that gave on to the Cour du Midi. She hauled herself up, wriggled over the stone ledge and threaded herself in through the narrow gap.

She was in luck. The room was empty. Alais jumped down to the ground, taking care to make as little noise as possible, then slowly opened the door and slipped into the space behind the curtain. She shuffled along until she was as close to the gap as she dared be. She was so close to where Viscount Trencavel stood, his hands clasped behind his back, that she could have reached out and touched him.

She was only just in time. At the far end of the Great Hall, the doors were thrown open. She saw her father stride in, followed by the King of Aragon and several of Carcassonne’s allies, including the seigneurs of Lavaur and Cabaret.

Viscount Trencavel fell to his knees before his liege lord.

“No need for that,” said Pedro, bidding him rise.

Physically the two men were strikingly different. The King was Trencavel’s senior by many years, of an age with her father. Tall and broad, a bull of a man, his face bore the marks of many military campaigns.

His features were heavy, brooding, made more so by his thick, black moustache against his dark skin. His hair, although still black, like her father’s was going grey at the temples.

“Bid your men withdraw,” he said curtly. “I would talk privately with you, Trencavel.”

“With your leave, Sire King, I would ask permission for my steward to remain. I value his counsel.”

The King hesitated, and then nodded.

“There are no words that can give adequate expression to our gratitude…”

Pedro interrupted. “I’ve not come to support you, but to help you to see the error of your ways. You have brought this situation upon yourself by your wilful refusal to deal with heretics in your dominions. You have had four years – four years – to address the matter, but yet you have done nothing. You allow Cathar bishops to preach openly in your towns and cities. Your vassals openly support the Bons Homes-”

“No vassal…”

“Do you deny that attacks on holy men and priests have gone unpunished? The humiliation of the men of the church? In your lands, heretics worship openly. Your allies give them protection. It is common know: the Count of Foix insults the Holy Relics by refusing to bow before them and his sister has slipped so far from grace as to take her vows as a parfaite, a ceremony the count saw fit to attend.”

“I cannot answer for the Count of Foix.”

“He is your vassal and your ally,” Pedro threw back at him. Why do you allow this state of affairs to flourish?“

Alais felt the Viscount draw in his breath. “Sire, you answer your own question. We live side by side with those you call heretics. We grew up together, our closest kinsmen are among them. The parfaits lived good honest lives ministering to an ever-growing flock. I could no more expel them than I could prevent the daily rising of the sun!”

His words did not move Pedro. “Your only hope is to be reconciled with the Holy Mother Church. You are the equal of any of the northern barons the Abbot has with him and they will treat you as such if you seek to make amends. But if, for a moment, you give him cause to believe you too hold these heretical thoughts, in your heart if not by your actions, then he will crush you.” The King sighed. “Do you really believe you can withstand this, Trencavel? You are outnumbered a hundred to one.”

“We have plenty of food.”

“Food, yes, but not water. You have lost the river.”

Alais saw her father dart a glance at the Viscount, clearly fearing he would lose his temper.

“I do not wish to defy you or put myself beyond your good offices, but can you not see they come to fight for our land, not our souls? This war is not waged for the glory of God but for the greed of men. This is an army of occupation, Sire. If I have failed the Church – and so offended you, Sire – I ask your pardon. But I owe no allegiance to the Count of Nevers or the Abbot of Citeaux. They have no right, spiritual or temporal, over my lands. I will not betray my people to the French jackals for so base a cause.”

Alais felt a surge of pride. From the expression on her father’s face, she knew he felt it also. For the first time, something of Trencavel’s courage and spirit seemed to affect the King.

“These are noble words, Viscount, but they will not help you now. For the sake of your people, whom you love, let me at least tell the Abbot of Citeaux you will hear his terms.”

Trencavel walked away to the window and spoke under his breath.

“We do not have enough water to satisfy all those within the Ciutat?”

Her father shook his head. “We do not.”

Only his hands, white against the stone sill of the window, betrayed how much the words cost him to speak.

“Very well. I will hear what the Abbot has to say.”

For a while after Pedro had departed, Trencavel said nothing. He stayed where he was, watching the sun sink from the sky. Finally, when the candles were lit, he sat. Pelletier ordered food and drink to be brought from the kitchens.

Alais dared not move for fear she would be discovered. She had cramps in her arms and her legs. The walls seemed to be pressing in upon her, but there was nothing she could do.

Beneath the curtains, she could see her father’s feet as he paced up and down and heard the low murmurings of conversation from time to time.

It was late when Pedro II returned. From the expression on his face, Alais knew straight away the mission had failed. Her spirit sank. It was the last chance to get the Trilogy away from the Cite before the siege began in earnest.

“You have news?” said Trencavel, rising to greet him.

“None that I would give, Viscount,” Pedro replied. “It offends me even to deliver his insulting words.” He accepted a cup of wine and downed it in one. “The Abbot of Citeaux will allow you and twelve men of your choosing to leave the Chateau tonight, unmolested, bearing all you can carry.”

Alais saw the Viscount’s hands ball into fists. “And Carcassona?”

The Ciutat and everything, everyone else passes to the Host. After Besiers, the lords will be looking for recompense.“

For a moment after he’d spoken, there was silence.

Then, Trencavel finally gave vent to his temper and hurled his cup against the wall. “How dare he offer such an insult!” he roared. “How dare he insult our honour, our pride! I will not abandon a single one of my subjects to these French jackals.”

“Messire,” murmured Pelletier.

Trencavel stood, hands on his hips, breathing heavily, waiting until his rage had passed.

Then he turned again to the King. “Sire, I am grateful for your intercession and for the offices you have undertaken on our behalf. However, if you will not – or cannot – fight with us, then we must part company. You should withdraw.”

Pedro nodded, knowing there was nothing more to be said. “May God be with you, Trencavel,” he said unhappily.

Trencavel met his gaze. “I believe he is,” he said defiantly.

As Pelletier accompanied the King from the hall, Alais took her chance to slip away.

The Feast of the Transfiguration of the Virgin passed quietly, with little progress made on either side. Trencavel continued to shower down arrows and missiles on the Crusaders, while the mindless thud, thud of the catapult sent rock and stone thundering into the walls. Men fell on both sides, but little ground was gained or lost.

The plains resembled a charnel house. Bodies rotted where they lay, in the heat and feasted on by a plague of black flies. Kites and hawks, circling over the battlefield, picked the bones clean.

On Friday the seventh of August, the Crusaders launched an attack on the southern suburb of Sant-Miquel. For a while, they succeeded in the ditch below the walls, but were repelled by a shower of arrows and stones. After several hours of stalemate, the French withdrew under the continued onslaught, to the jeers and triumph of the Carcassonnais.

At dawn the following day, as the world shimmered silver in the early morning light and a delicate mist floated gently across the slopes where more than a thousand Crusaders stood facing Sant-Miquel, the attack began again.

Helmets and shields, swords and pikes, eyes, glinted in the pale sun. Each man wore a cross pinned to his breast, white against the colours of Nevers, Burgundy, Chartres and Champagne.

Viscount Trencavel had positioned himself on the walls of Sant-Miquel, shoulder to shoulder with his men, ready to repel the attack.

The archers and dardasiers held themselves ready, bows set. Below, the foot soldiers were armed with axes, swords and pikes. Behind them, safe within the Cite until they were required, were the chevaliers.

In the distance, the French drums began to beat. They banged the hard earth with their pikes, a steady, heavy sound that echoed over the waiting land.

And so it begins.

Alais stood on the wall at her father’s side, her attention split between looking for her husband, and watching the Crusaders stream down the hill.

When the Host was within range, Viscount Trencavel raised his arm and gave the order. A storm of arrows immediately darkened the sky.

On both sides, men fell. The first scaling ladder was already on the walls. A bolt from a crossbow whizzed through the air and connected with rough, heavy wood and brought it down. The ladder tilted, then overbalanced. It fell slowly at first, then picked up speed, hurling the men to the ground in a splinter of blood, bone and wood.

The Crusaders succeeded in getting a gata, a siege engine, up to the walls of the suburb. Sheltered beneath the cover, drenched with water, the sappers began to pull rocks out of the walls and dig a cavity to weaken the fortifications.

Trencavel shouted at the archers to destroy the structure. Another storm of missiles and flaming arrows hurtled through the air on the wooden structure. The sky fizzed with pitch and black smoke until finally it caught alight, sending men, their clothes burning, fleeing from the burning cage, only to be cut down by the arrows.

It was too late. The defenders could only watch as the mine the Crusaders had been preparing for days was fired. Alais threw up her hands to protect her face as the explosion threw a violent shower of stone, dust and flame up into the air.

The Crusaders charged through the breach. The roar of the fire drowned out even the screaming of the women and children fleeing the inferno.

The heavy gate between the Cite and Sant-Miquel was dragged open and the chevaliers of Carcassonne launched their first attack. Keep him safe, she found herself murmuring to herself, as if words could repel arrows.

Now the Crusaders were catapulting the heads of the dead, severed from their bodies, over the walls to engender panic and fear. The shouting and shrieking grew louder as Viscount Trencavel led his men into the fray. He was one of the first to draw blood, driving his sword clean through the neck of a Crusader and kicking the body free of his blade with his boot.

Guilhem was not far behind him in the charge, driving his warhorse through the mass of attackers, trampling all those in his path.

Alais caught sight of Alzeu de Preixan at his side. She watched in horror as Alzeu’s horse slipped and went down. Straight away, Guilhem pulled his horse round and went to aid his friend. Frenzied by the smell of blood and the clashing steel, Guilhem’s mighty horse reared up on its hind legs, crushing a Crusader underfoot, buying Alzeu enough time to scramble back on to his feet and out of danger.

They were heavily outnumbered. Hordes of terrified and injured men, women and children fleeing into the Cite got in their way. The Host advanced relentlessly. Street by street fell under French control.

At last, Alais heard the cry go up.

“Repli! Repli!” Pull back.

Under cover of night a handful of defenders stole back into the devastated suburb. They slaughtered the few Crusaders left on guard, set fire to the remaining houses, at least depriving the French of cover from which to resume their bombardment of the Cite.

But the truth was stark.

Both Sant-Vicens and Sant-Miquel had fallen. Carcassonne stood alone.