The basse cour courtyard was given over to the working life of the castle – the stables and blacksmith, the kennels for the hunting dogs, the stores of provisions to support the household, the salting house. Each Saturday, the lower courtyard served as the weekly market for Puivert. Tradesmen and artisans had begun to come up from the village as soon as the gates were opened to set up their stalls. Farm women with willow panniers and wide-brimmed hats bearing the first fruits of summer; the cooper and his boy rolling rattling barrels of ale over the drawbridge and into their position in the shadow of the western walls; a poulter with a brood of hens gathered within a makeshift wooden pen. The fires of the forge were already burning, the farrier with his rasp in hand. Even a travelling bookseller appeared with his chap books and pamphlets. Minou had never seen him before and made a mental note to look over his stock.
Women bobbed their heads as they walked by, men touched their caps. Minou smiled and raised her hand in greeting to those she knew. It had taken her some time to learn to accept and to acknowledge these signs of fealty. Nothing in her modest upbringing in Carcassonne, or her childhood spent in her father’s bookshop in the Bastide, had prepared her for such status or position.
Minou had come into her unexpected title from her birth mother, Marguerite, for whom she was named. That Bernard and Florence were not her blood parents was a secret that had been kept from her until she was nineteen. So, although Minou felt a gratitude for the woman who had died giving birth to her – and in whose image she was fashioned, tall and pale, with straight brown hair and mismatched eyes – she considered Florence, some fifteen years buried, her true mother. It was love, not blood, that mattered. It was from Florence that she had learnt her life lessons, not least to respect and pay heed to antiquity: ‘Without knowing of the mistakes of the past,’ she used to say, ‘how can we learn not to repeat them? History is our teacher.’
Minou had held the advice close to her heart and so, without intending it, had modelled herself on the great medieval hero of Languedoc, Viscount Trencavel.* She ran her estates in Puivert – their estates – in the same spirit of toleration and was proud that in this, one of the southernmost points of the Midi, Huguenots and Catholics lived side by side as Christian neighbours, not enemies.
When Piet had been away in the early years of the wars, Minou had governed Puivert alone. She had become reliant on her own counsel and instincts, adjudging who was the injured party in a broken engagement or a dowry unpaid; listening to charges of adultery and ill faith and stolen inheritance; protecting the innocent against unwarranted charges and administering justice to the guilty.
‘Merci infiniment, madame,’ said Marta prettily.
Minou looked round to see her daughter accepting a handful of ripe, red cherries from an old woman, dressed head-to-toe in black, in the custom of the mountains. Marta’s pale blue dress, with its delicate cream beads, dazzled in comparison.
‘Mercé a vos, madomaisèla,’ the woman responded in the old language.
CHAPTER NINE
At midday Piet knocked at the appointed house in rue de l’Aigle d’Or and waited to be admitted. He heard footsteps on the stairs, then the door was opened a crack.
He blinked at the unexpected sight of a familiar face.
‘Michel Cazès, by all that’s holy! I had not thought to see you here.’
The door opened wider, Piet stepped inside and the two men shook hands. Five years ago, both new converts to the Huguenot cause, he and Michel had fought shoulder to shoulder in the Prince of Condé’s army: Michel, a professional soldier; Piet, a civilian forced to take up arms to defend what he believed in. Since that time, Piet had not heard word of him.
Time had been cruel. Now bone thin and dressed all in black save for a white ruff and cuffs, Michel’s face was scored with lines. His skin was sallow and his hair turned white. As they embraced, Piet could feel his friend’s ribs beneath his clothes.
‘How goes it with you?’ he said, dismayed by the change in his friend.
Michel raised his arms. ‘As you see, I am still here.’
At the top of the stairs, a dishevelled young man called down to them.
‘Has he given the password?’
‘It is not necessary,’ Michel said. ‘I can vouch for him.’
‘All the same,’ the boy said in his lazy, high-born accent.
Piet exchanged a look with Michel, but obliged. ‘For the Midi.’
As they climbed the steep stairs, he noticed Michel’s breathing was laboured. Twice he had to stop and hold a kerchief scented with balsam to his mouth. Piet also noticed, as Michel clutched at the banister, that two fingers were missing on his right hand.
‘My friend, shall we pause –’
‘I am fine,’ Michel said.
They continued to the top of the building, where Piet opened his cloak to the young man to show he was armed.
‘Per lo Miègjorn,’ Piet said, repeating the password.
The boy stared at the dagger but did not ask him to remove it. His eyes were bloodshot and the stench of yesterday’s ale lay strong on his skin.
‘Come in, Monsieur.’
Piet stepped into a fugged room, the air thick with wood smoke and the scent of stale food. A chicken carcass picked clean sat on a wooden platter on the table, tankards sour with the smell of ale and mead.
‘Let me make the introductions,’ Michel said. ‘Comrades, may I present to you one of the most steadfast soldiers with whom I ever had the honour to serve. Piet Reydon, originally of Amsterdam—’
‘But owing allegiance to the Midi,’ Piet interrupted. ‘I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Messieurs.’
He looked around the room. It was a smaller group than he expected, though that was probably a good thing.
‘Our Cerberus, Philippe Devereux, you have already met.’
He gave a half-bow. Closer up, the young man seemed green around the gills. His yellow doublet and hose were stained.
Michel gestured to the window sill. ‘This is our commander, Oliver Crompton,’ he said, stumbling over the English surname, then to a man sitting at the square wooden table. ‘And Alphonse Bonnet, who is in his service.’
Piet nodded at the dark and stocky labourer, his dirty hands cupped around a rough wooden tankard, before turning to his master. Well built, with eyes close set, he wore his black beard trimmed in the English style.
‘Monsieur Piet Reydon.’
Crompton held out his hand. Piet shook it and, as their eyes met, he felt a cool appraisal. His left hand tightened around the strap of his satchel.
‘We have heard much of the charitable work you do for our community in Toulouse. Your reputation precedes you.’
‘Much exaggerated, I am sure.’ He smiled. ‘Crompton?’
‘English father, French mother, and a distant cousin to this young gentleman, who found the lure of the taverns of Trivalle more attractive than his own bed last evening. He is not yet recovered.’
Devereux flushed. ‘On my honour, I drank no more than a gage of ale, perhaps two. I cannot account for why I was so ill affected.’
Crompton shook his head. ‘You find us in the middle of a discussion, Monsieur.’
‘Piet does not have time to waste,’ Michel said. ‘We should proceed to our business.’