‘Did you catch him?’ asked Devereux, exchanging a look with Crompton. ‘Did he say anything?’
‘No,’ Piet said. ‘Should he have done?’
‘Michel always lets his heart rule his head,’ Crompton said dismissively. ‘He will come around.’
Piet was suddenly sick of the pack of them. Schoolboys, playing at conspiracy, he had no patience for it. Dreaming of war and glory when he suspected none of them had seen action on the battlefield. They did not yet understand there was no glory in death.
‘When the time comes – if the time comes – Michel will be the most steadfast of us all.’ Piet knew his words sounded like a rebuke, but he did not care.
But now the moment was upon him, Piet was oddly reluctant to conclude the deal. The matter left an ugly taste in his mouth. But, they needed funds in Toulouse and Carcassonne was prepared to buy what they had to sell. Soldiers, weapons, building materials and bribes, the cost of caring for the hundreds of refugees who came in need of food and shelter. All of it came at a cost. It was too late for him to have a crisis of conscience now.
‘Shall we to business? Time is short.’
‘Of course,’ Crompton said, and turned to Alphonse Bonnet, who stumbled to the corner of the chamber and worried at a loose floorboard. He pulled out a brown hessian bag from the cavity and handed it to his master.
‘Here,’ Crompton said. ‘It is all there. The price as agreed.’
Piet met his gaze. ‘You will forgive me if I confirm the sum. We would not wish for there to be any later misunderstanding.’
Crompton’s expression hardened, but he did not object. Piet emptied the gold deniers onto the table, counting the coins back into the bag one by one.
‘All there, my thanks.’
Crompton gave a curt nod. ‘And now your side of the bargain.’
Piet took the satchel from his shoulder and laid it carefully flat on the table. He watched his own hand reach out, saw himself slowly unfastening the buckle and reaching inside. The air cracked with expectation.
Piet’s fingers took hold of the delicate fabric within and he drew it out into the light. The pale cloth seemed to shimmer, transforming the grey gloom of the modest room into a place of light. The silk warp and the linen weft felt so delicate in his hands. He saw, as if for the first time, the delicate ornamental stitches embroidered along the length of the Shroud. The exquisite Kufic calligraphy spoke to Piet of nothing, and yet everything. For an instant, he felt he could almost smell the chill of the tomb and the exotic scents of the Holy Land, the olive groves and the bitter herbs of the sepulchre.
Except, it could not be . . . Time seemed to speed up again.
‘The Shroud of Antioch,’ Devereux muttered, his eyes greedy. ‘I have waited long to see it.’
The relic had been carried to the Eglise Saint-Taur in Toulouse in 1392, by Crusaders returning from Antioch. A small fragment of the cloth, within which the body of Christ had been laid to rest in the sepulchre before his Resurrection, the Shroud was said to have worked countless miracles. It was the holiest of relics, one that would confer power on any who had possession of it.
‘Here, Piet said roughly. ‘Take it. Use it for the good of our cause.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘There,’ Minou said, dropping the last strip of muslin into the bowl of water and vinegar. The blood, rinsed from the cloth, turning the water pink. ‘I do not think there will be any infection, the cut is not deep.’
Madame Noubel was sitting in a low chair in the bookshop with a horsehair blanket folded across her knees. Minou had locked the door and fastened the shutters. So far, they had not been disturbed.
‘That such a thing should happen, Minou, in broad daylight in the Bastide. I scarce believe it.’
‘I think it was an accident,’ Minou replied carefully, ‘though the captain’s behaviour was reprehensible.’
‘The world has gone mad,’ Madame Noubel sighed, shrugging her heavy shoulders. ‘But how proud your mother would have been of you. You showed great courage. Florence always stood firm. She always did what was right.’
‘Anyone would have done the same.’
‘Except they did not. People think only of their own skins these days. Not that I blame them.’ She shook her head. ‘Monsieur Sanchez is keeping an eye on my premises, you say?’
‘He is. Charles is with him.’
Madame Noubel raised her eyebrows. ‘More of a hindrance than a help, I’d have thought.’
‘Try not to worry,’ Minou said, folding the soiled muslin strips ready to take home for Rixende to bleach and wash.
‘How goes it with your father?’ Madame Noubel asked. ‘I have not seen him these past weeks.’
Minou was on the point of deflecting the question, as she usually did, then stopped. She did not want to be disloyal, but she was in need of a friend to talk to.
‘In truth, and though I have spoken to no one of it, I am much concerned. My father returned from his travels in January much distracted and burdened by melancholy. I have never seen him so low in his spirits, at least not since my mother passed away.’
Madame Noubel nodded. ‘He always did rely on Florence to give him strength. When you ask what ails him, what answer does he give?’
‘Sometimes, he denies there is anything amiss. Other times that it is no more than the rigours of the season. Certainly, he is plagued by soreness on his skin, but until this winter he was never so much afflicted by the dark and cold. He has not once set foot outside the house since his return.’
‘In four weeks! Not even to go to Mass?’
‘No, and he will not permit the priest to call upon him either.’
‘Might Bernard be concerned about the bookshop, especially after that trouble you had? Rents are always rising, times are hard. We are all struggling to make ends meet.’
Minou frowned. ‘It is true our finances are much on his mind and he fears for Aimeric’s prospects. We cannot afford proper schooling, or the purchase of an army commission.’ She paused. ‘He is even talking of sending him to lodge with our aunt and her husband in Toulouse.’
‘Indeed!’ Madame Noubel’s eyebrows arched. ‘I was not aware the breach in the family had ever been healed.’
‘I am not sure it has,’ she said carefully, ‘and yet my father is quite resolved Aimeric should go.’ Minou picked at a loose thread on her skirts. ‘But I think there is something more.’
The candle guttered in the brass holder on the table, casting a flickering shadow across Madame Noubel’s careworn face.
‘There are things in a man’s life that he cannot speak of to his children, even one so close to his heart as are you.’
‘I am nineteen! I’m not a child.’
‘Ah, Minou,’ Madame Noubel smiled, ‘whatever age you are, you will always be his daughter, his little girl. He cannot help but want to protect you. It is the way of things.’
‘I cannot bear to see him so burdened.’
Madame Noubel sighed. ‘The suffering of those we love is harder to bear than anything we feel on our own behalf.’
‘I fear that I have, by some carelessness, lost his affection,’ Minou said softly.