Labyrinth

CHAPTER 4

From his vantage point on the tavern roof, the boy with the amber eyes and dark blond hair turned to see where the noise was coming from.

A messenger was galloping up through the crowded streets of the Cite from the Porte Narbonnaise, with complete disregard for anybody who got in his way. Men were yelling at him to dismount. Women snatched their children from under the thundering hooves. A couple of unchained dogs jumped up at the horse, barking and snarling and snapping at its hind legs The rider took no notice.

The horse was sweating badly. Even from this distance, Sajhe could sec the lines of white foam on its withers and round its mouth. He veered sharply toward the bridge that led to the Chateau Comtal.

Sajhe stood up to get a better view, balanced precariously on the sharp edge of the uneven tiles, in time to see Intendant Pelletier on a powerful gray appear between the gate towers, followed by Alai’s, also on horseback She looked upset, he thought, and wondered what had happened and where they were going. They were not dressed for hunting.

Sajhe liked Alai’s. When she came to visit his grandmother, Esclarmonde she talked to him, unlike many ladies of the household, who pretended he wasn’t there. They were too anxious about the potions and medicines they wanted menina, his grandmother, to prepare for them-to reduce a fever ease a swelling, to bring on childbirth or for affairs of the heart.

But in all the years he’d worshipped Alai’s, Sajhe had never seen her look quite like she had just then. The boy slithered down the tawny tiles to the edge of the roof and lowered himself down, landing with a soft thump and only just avoiding a goat tethered to a lopsided cart.

“Hey! Watch what you’re doing,” a woman yelled.

“I never touched it,” he shouted, darting out of reach of her broom.

The Cite was buzzing with the sights, smells and sounds of market day Wooden shutters banged against stone in every thoroughfare and alley, a; servants and householders opened their windows to the air before the sun became too hot. Coopers watched their apprentices rolling barrels over the cobbles, clattering and bumping and jolting, racing each other to get to the taverns before their rivals. Carts jerked awkwardly over the uneven ground, their wheels creaking and sticking from time to time as they rumbled toward the main square.

Sajhe knew every shortcut in the Cite and he scampered in and out of the jostling arms and legs, dodging between the tapping hooves of sheep and goats, the donkeys and mules laden with goods and baskets, the pigs, lazy and slow, as they plodded their way through the streets. An older boy with an angry expression on his face was herding an unruly gaggle of geese, which honked and pecked at one another and at the bare legs of two little girls standing close by. Sajhe winked at them and tried to make them laugh. He went right up behind the ugliest bird and flapped his arms.

“What do you think you’re doing?” shouted the boy. “Get away!”

The girls laughed. Sajhe honked, just as the old, gray goose spun round, stuck its neck out and hissed viciously in his face.

“Serves you right, pec,” said the boy. “Fucking idiot.”

Sajhe jumped back from the snapping orange beaks. “You should control them better.”

“Only babies are scared of geese,” the boy sneered, squaring up to Sajhe. “Is the baby frightened of a harmless little goose? Nenon.”

“I’m not scared,” boasted Sajhe, pointing at the girls, who were now hiding behind their mother’s legs. “But they are. You should watch what you’re doing.”

“And what’s it got to do with you, el”

“I’m just saying, you should watch out.”

He moved closer, switching his stick at Sajhe’s face.

“And who’s going to make me? You?”

The boy was a head taller than Sajhe. His skin was a mass of purple bruises and red marks. Sajhe took a step back and held up his hands.

“I said, who’s going to make me?” repeated the boy, ready for a fight.

Words would have given way to fists had not an old drunk, who was slumped against the wall, woken up and started yelling at them to clear off and leave him alone. Sajhe took advantage of the diversion to slip away.

The sun was just climbing over the higher roofs of the buildings, flooding sections of the street with slats of bright light and glinting off the horseshoe outside the door of the blacksmith’s forge. Sajhe stopped and looked in, feeling the heat from the furnace on his face even from the street.

There was a crowd of men waiting round the forge, as well as several younger ecuyers with their masters’ helmets, shields and hauberks, all of which required attention. He presumed the blacksmith in the chateau was overwhelmed with too much work.

Sajhe didn’t have the blood or the pedigree to be apprenticed, but it didn’t stop him dreaming of being a chevalier in his own colors. He smiled at one or two of the boys of his own age, but they just stared right through him, as they always did and always would.

Sajhe turned and walked away.

Most of the market traders were regulars and had set up in their usual places. The smell of hot fat filled Sajhe’s nose the moment he walked into the square. He loitered at a stall where a man was frying pancakes, turning them on a hot griddle. The smell of thick bean soup and warm mitadene bread, made from half barley and half wheat, stimulated his appetite. He walked past stalls selling buckles and pots, woolen cloths, skins and leather, both local goods and more exotic belts and purses from Cordoba or farther afield even, but he didn’t stop. He paused a while by a stall offering knives and scissors for shearing sheep, before moving to the corner of the square where most of the live animals were penned. There were always lots of chickens and capons in wooden cages, sometimes larks and wrens, which fluted and whistled. His favorite were the rabbits, all squashed together in a heap of brown, black and white fur.

Sajhe walked past the stalls selling grain and salt, white meats, ale from casks and wine, until he found himself at a stand selling herbs and exotic spices. In front of the table was a merchant. Sajhe had never seen a man so tall, so black. He was dressed in long, shimmering blue robes, a shining silk turban and red and gold pointed slippers. His skin was darker even than that of the gypsies that traveled from Navarre and Aragon over the mountains. Sajhe guessed he must be a Saracen, although he’d never me one before.

The merchant had laid out his display in the shape of a wheel: green and yellows, oranges, browns and reds, ocher. At the front were rosemary and parsley, garlic, marigold and lavender, but at the back there were more expensive spices, such as cardamom, nutmeg and saffron. Sajhe didn’t recognize any of the others, but he was already looking forward to telling hi grandmother what he had seen.

He was about to step forward to get a better look, when the Saracen roared in a voice like thunder. His heavy dark hand grabbed the skinny wrist of a cutpurse who’d tried to steal a coin from the embroidered purse that hung from a twisted red cord around his waist. He cuffed the boy around the head, sending him flying back into a woman standing behind, who started shouting. Straight away a crowd started to gather. Sajhe slipped away. He didn’t want to get caught up in any trouble.

Sajhe wandered out of the square toward the taberna Sant Joan dels Evangelis. Since he had no money with him, at the back of his mind was the idea he could offer to run errands in exchange for a cup of brout. Then he heard someone calling his name.

Sajhe turned and saw one of his grandmother’s friends, Na Marti, sitting with her husband at their stall, waving to attract his attention. She was a weaver and her husband was a carder. Most weeks they could be found in the same spot, spinning and combing, preparing their wool and threads.

Sajhe waved back. Like Esclarmonde, Na Marti was a follower of the new church. Her husband, Senher Marti was not a believer, although he had come to Esclarmonde’s house with his wife at Pentecost to hear the Bans Homes preach.

Na Marti ruffled his hair.

“How are you, young man? You’re getting so tall, these days, I hardly recognize you.”

“Fine, thank you,” he replied, smiling at her, then turned to her husband who was combing wool into skeins ready to sell. “Bonjorn, Senher.”

“And Esclarmonde?” Na Marti continued. “She’s keeping well too? Keeping everyone in order as usual?”

He grinned. “She’s the same as always.”

“Ben, ben.” Good.

Sajhe sat himself down cross-legged at her feet and watched the spinning wheel as it turned round and round.

“Na Marti?” he said, after a while. “Why don’t you come to pray with us anymore?”

Senher Marti stopped what he was doing and exchanged a worried glance with his wife.

“Oh, you know how it is,” Na Marti replied, avoiding his eye. “We’re so busy these days. It’s hard to make the journey to Carcassonne as often as we’d like.”

She adjusted her bobbin and continued to spin, the rocking of the treadle filling the silence that had fallen between them.

“Menina misses you.”

“I miss her too, but friends can’t always be together.”

Sajhe frowned. “But then why-”

Senher Marti tapped him sharply on the shoulder.

“Do not talk so loudly,” he said in a low voice. “This sort of thing is be kept to ourselves.”

“What’s best kept to ourselves?” he said, puzzled. “I only-”

“We heard, Sajhe,” said Senher Marti, glancing over his shoulder. “The whole market heard. Now, no more about prayer,?”

Confused about what he’d done to make Senher Marti so angry, Sajhe scrambled to his feet. Na Marti turned on her husband. They seemed have forgotten all about him.

“You’re being too harsh on him, Rogier,” she hissed. “He’s just a boy.”

“And it only takes one person with a loose tongue and we’ll be round* up with the others. We can’t afford to take risks. If people think we associate with heretics-”

“Heretic, indeed,” she snapped back. “He’s only a child!”

“Not the boy. Esclarmonde. It’s common knowledge she’s one of them. And if it gets out that we go to pray in her house, they’ll accuse us of following the Bons Homes too and we’ll be persecuted.”

“So we abandon our friends? Just because of a few scare stories you heard.”

Senher Marti dropped his voice. “I’m just saying we should be careful. You know what people are saying. That an army is coming to drive’t heretics out.”

“They’ve been saying that for years. You are making too much of it… for the legates, these ”men of God‘ have been strolling around the countryside for years now, drinking themselves into the grave and nothing ever come of it. Let the bishops argue it out amongst themselves and let the rest of us to get on with our lives.“

She turned away from her husband. “Take no notice,” she said, putting her hand on Sajhe’s shoulder. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”

Sajhe looked at his feet, not wanting her to see him cry.

Na Marti continued in an unnaturally bright voice. “Now then, were you saying the other day that you wanted to buy a present for Alais? Why don’t we see what we can find?”

Sajhe nodded. He knew she was trying to reassure him, but he felt muddled and embarrassed.

“I don’t have any means to pay,” he said.

“Well, don’t you worry about that. I’m sure we can overlook that j this once. Now, why don’t you take a look.” Na Marti ran her fingers over the colorful rows of thread. “What about this? Do you think she’d like it? It’s a perfect match for her eyes.”

Sajhe fingered the delicate copper-brown thread. I’m not sure.

“Well, I think she will. Shall I wrap it for you?”

She turned away to look for a square of cloth to protect the thread. Not wanting to seem ungrateful, Sajhe tried to think of something safe to say.

“I saw her earlier.”

“Alais, yes? How was she? With that sister of hers?”

He pulled a face. “No. But she didn’t look very happy all the same.”

“Well,” said Na Marti, “if she was upset before, then this is just the right time to give her a present. It will cheer her up. Alais usually comes to market in the morning, doesn’t she? If you keep your eyes open and your wits about you, I’m sure you’ll find her.”

Glad to be excused from the strained company, Sajhe tucked the package under his tunic and said his goodbyes. After a couple of steps, he turned to wave. The Martis were standing side by side, looking after him, but saying nothing.

The sun was now high in the sky. Sajhe wandered around, asking after Alais. No one had seen her.

He was hungry now and had decided he might as well go home, when he suddenly caught sight of Alais standing at a stall offering goat’s cheese for sale. He broke into a run and crept up on her, throwing his arms around her waist.

“Bonjorn.”

Alais spun round, rewarding him with a wide smile when she saw who it was.

“Sajhe,” she said, ruffling his hair. “You gave me a surprise!”

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” he grinned. “Are you all right? I saw you earlier. You looked upset.”

“Earlier?”

“You were riding into the chateau with your father. Just after the messenger.”

“Ah, earlier,” she said. “Don’t worry, I’m fine. I’d just had a tiring morning. How lovely to see your lively face, though.” She gave him a kiss on the top of his head, making Sajhe scarlet. He stared furiously at his feet, not wanting her to see. “Anyway, since you’re here, help me choose a good cheese.”

The smooth round tablets of fresh goat’s cheese were laid out in a perfect pattern on a bed of straw pressed tight inside wooden trays. Some looked dry with a yellowish skin. These were stronger flavored and might be a fortnight old. Others, made more recently, glistened wet and soft. Alai’s asked the prices, pointing at this portion and that, asking Sajhe’s advice, until at last they had chosen the piece she wanted. She gave him a coin from her purse to hand to the seller, while she pulled out a small polished wooden board on which to carry the cheese.

Sajhe’s eyes flared wide with surprise when he glimpsed the pattern on the reverse. Why did Alai’s have it? How? In his confusion, he dropped the coins on the ground. Embarrassed, he dived under the table, playing for time. When he stood up again, to his relief Alai’s appeared not to have noticed anything amiss, so Sajhe put the matter out of his mind. Instead, once the transaction was complete, he plucked up the courage to give Alai’s her present.

“I have something for you,” he said shyly, thrusting the package abruptly into her hands.

“How kind,” she said. “Is it from Esclarmonde?”

“No, from me.”

“What a lovely surprise. May I open it now?”

He nodded, face serious, but eyes sparkling with anticipation as Alai’s carefully unwrapped the parcel.

“Oh, Sajhe, it’s beautiful,” she said, holding up the shiny, brown thread. “It’s absolutely beautiful.”

“I didn’t steal it,” he said quickly. “Na Marti gave it to me. I think she was trying to make it up to me.”

The moment the words were out of his mouth, Sajhe regretted them.

“Make up to you for what?” said Alai’s quickly.

Just then, a shout went up. A man close by was pointing up at the sky. A flock of large, black birds was flying low across the Cite, from west to east, in the shape of an arrow. The sun seemed to glance off their sleek, dark feathers, like sparks from an anvil. Somebody close by said it was an omen, although nobody could agree if it was a good one or a bad one.

Sajhe did not believe in such superstitions, but today it made him shiver. Alai’s seemed to feel something too, because she put her arm around his shoulder and pulled him close.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Res,” she said, too quickly. Nothing.

High above them, unconcerned with the human world, the birds continued on their way, until they were no more than a smudge in the sky.