Daughters of Babylon (19 page)

“And you hope it will be so again.”

“I do, yes.”

“I think Blythe must have hoped the same.” Silvie placed a hand on a large beveled stone. “You said something about ‘cells for the protected’. What did you mean?”

“Queen of Heaven was a sanctuary during the Crusades, the Inquisition, campaigns against the Cathars and other heretics. When certain skill sets needed to be protected, this is where they came.”

“So this was a Templar priory.”

“No. I thought so too, but Viv said the Templars and Cathars were, in their way, almost as rigid as the established Church. Residents of
Reine du Ciel
practiced something far older and, apparently, threatening to all of them.” He looked up at the sky that was darkening with clouds. A chill wind had picked up. “A storm may be coming. Let’s go see
La Tapiada
.”

Silvie rubbed her hands to keep from shivering as they entered the ruins to a vast space that once must have been a magnificent hall. There were still remains of a fireplace and chimney.

“This was the refectory,” Gavriel said. “There was an indoor kitchen on the other side. They say that she was walled here specifically so that any meals eaten or prepared in the vicinity would make a person sick from her eternal screaming. I didn’t know that when Viv first brought me here, I just thought the smoked meat in my sandwich was a little off—”

“Whoa, wait a minute, did you say a woman was walled here?”

“Yes, that’s what
La Tapiada
means, the walled woman. I thought you knew.”

“I didn’t. I should have asked.”

“There’s even a restaurant in St. Jacques called
La Tapieé.
Kind of tacky, if you ask me, but people do love the story.”

“Who was she, and who did it?”

“She was the prioress, the Mother Superior. Local people walled her, maybe influenced by enemies, no one knows for sure.”

Hot reddish tar pouring down from above her head, oozing like a fluid muzzle into her ears and nostrils, was how the synesthesia reconstructed the ruins. She felt revolted, outraged, helpless. “Can we go closer?”

“Sure.”

The wall beside the fireplace was in the sturdiest condition of anything they’d seen, with a double thickness of mortared stone. But the masonry was cruder than the rest of the hall, suggesting something slapped together. “Is she still in there?”

“I expect so. There has been no excavation.” Gavriel scrolled through photos he’d taken. “We’ve come nearly to the end of Queen of Heaven. There’s one more place I’d like to show you.”

Puffs of black cloud skiffed toward the snow-capped peaks in the distance.

“It won’t take long,” he said. “If we get caught in rain, I can get us to shelter in five minutes.”

“All right,” she said. Anything sounded better than standing here another minute.

There was one more complete orchard, the final bead, still within the bounds of Queen of Heaven. Here, the trees were most fully in leaf, and there were curly haired, ivory-coloured sheep grazing amidst the stately old trees. Gavriel led her with loping strides through a stand of evergreen and birch, and then the ground gave way abruptly to sky. For the first time since arriving, Silvina heard traffic. He walked to the edge, or not quite the edge.

Silvina remained where she stood, near a rusty old scaffold or derrick.

“You can’t see it from there,” he said.

“See what?”

Take what you need from the house and leave, Silvie. I can’t stress this enough.

Blythe’s warning repeated and rephrased itself, as the temperature dropped and trucks roared past, far, far below. If Silvie screamed, who would hear? Were the shepherds nearby? Would anyone bother to rescue her?

Gavriel’s expression darkened. “You think I’ve brought you all this way to hurt you.”

“The thought crossed my mind. It is crossing my mind. You can be offended if you want.” She folded her arms, while her teeth chattered.

“I’m not offended. It shows you have instincts. I thought Viv had them too.”

“What do you mean?”

He gestured toward the precipice. “This used to be a shortcut. Three hundred meters down is the village of St. Jacques de la Rivière. You’d have driven through it with Jean-Luc. On the far side of the river is the winery,
Le Croix de Cinq Diamants,
with guest houses. I’m staying in one of them.”

His description of the mundane helped. Silvina moved closer to the edge. First thing she saw in the tangled underbrush was a derelict cable car, nearly rusted through with the remains of a diamond logo on its side. St. Jacques looked like a toy village with tiny stucco buildings and red roofs, a blue silken river running through it. She dropped her gaze and saw, beside the cable car, carved directly into the rock, a set of stairs. They were impossibly steep and narrow, and would have been indistinguishable from the eroding mountain, except for the remains of a few iron stanchions and chain link railing.

“People used to climb these stairs?” Silvina said. “Were they crazy?”

“I don’t know. Vivian’s body was found at the bottom of these stairs by two young boys walking their dogs.”

Her head began to spin, and she felt an almost magnetic pull to tip forward, follow where her friend had gone. She grabbed Gavriel’s arm. “What was she doing all the way out here?”

He pulled her back a step. “I’ve been asking myself that same question for two weeks.”

Royal Palace
Principality of Antioch
MAY, A.D. 1148

Two small cedar chests sat on Eleanor’s four-poster bed, side by side near the pillows, hinged lids lying open. Eleanor paused, glanced at the contents and walked on toward the hearth where a fire burned low, and Jocelyne, her
femme de chambre
, sat embroidering.

“You don’t even want to look?” Jocelyne said.

The queen took the chair across from her. “I looked.” The heavy canvas of the work in progress covered Jocelyne’s lap and spilled onto cushions placed around her feet. She had two oil lamps for extra light, but even so, she squinted, shoulders curled in, back hunched. “Have you taken any breaks today, Jocie?”

“I don’t recall, Milady. I’m quite sure I must have.” She jabbed the needle from beneath the fabric with a small grunt. The tapestry that she had begun months ago was the scene of Prince Raymond welcoming Louis VII to Antioch. Working inward from the endless sand-coloured backdrop, she’d finally come to the principal characters. She pulled up lengths of thread with careful, tiny pinches.

Eleanor leaned closer. “Is that gold you’re working with?”

“It is. Real gold thread from the Samarkand, and it’s a torment. Whatever breaks must be gathered and remelted.” She gestured toward a bowl of gilt flecks and scraps near the lamp. “His Majesty insists the
fleurs de lis
of his robe be authentic.”

The Queen sighed. “I suppose the chests and this boon of exorbitant thread arrived simultaneously?”

Jocelyne looked up, and the sunken planes and shadows of her cheekbones removed any doubt of her exhaustion. “Your husband was most adamant that his gift be here when you returned from riding.”

“With careful staging too, I see.”

Her chamber maid looked as though she’d been jabbed.

“Aah, forgive me, I have caught you in our crossfire. You are doing a beautiful job.”

“Thank you. How was your ride? Would you like some chilled wine? Marie Thèrese is reviewing preparations for dinner, but she should be back momentarily. Perhaps a nice foot bath...”

“I’m fine for the moment…truly.”

Given that she’d spent the day riding through the hills outside Antioch with La Pistache, her sweet Anadolu sorrel, she ought to have felt tired but invigorated. The ride, however, had been a royal command by Louis to prevent her attendance on the final day of the Council sessions. Eleanor would have represented the nobles of Aquitaine, recommending that the Second Crusade be officially disbanded, the knights be sent home, stipends provided for any who wished to escort pilgrims still intent on reaching Jerusalem.

Louis, of course, knew what she intended to say, and because he’d lost nearly all capacity to look her in the eye, refused to join her for breakfast. A scroll tied in white satin ribbon came with a breakfast tray of fruit and warm, buttered lupin seed bread. The letter read:

My dearest wife
,

If it were within my power, I would build the walls of Antioch to Heaven to ensure no harm could come to your perfect being, no further sorrow to your eyes, nor distress to your loving heart. But since this cannot be, and I have witnessed with agony the toll these council sessions wreak upon your spirit, I have selected the finest of the Prince’s Royal Guards with his full approbation, I might add, to accompany you for a day of riding and pleasant reprieve.

I remain, forever, your devoted and beloved husband,

L.

La Pistache had been frisky and eager and would have given Eleanor a most pleasurable outing, but the knights—archers, fully armoured—none of whom she knew, refused to allow the pony to break into a gallop or Eleanor to lead—for reasons of threat to her royal person. They were hemmed in on all sides. Even at a canter, it felt like riding a hobby horse on a cart pulled by one-eyed oxen. The groom who received them at the stables, and who had none of Arturo de Padrón’s finesse, bore the weight of Pistache’s frustration with a kick to the forehead that knocked him cold. Eleanor stayed with the poor boy until he regained consciousness, but she’d not been able to shake the feeling that a single thread ran through this series of events—and that the thread was tightening.

“How did my husband seem to you, Jocelyne? Was he cheerful, morose?”

“Oh, most cheerful, Madame.” She let the canvas fall to her lap. “He instructed that I make certain you know, the pearls come from the coffers of the Emperor, and that I arrange your hair for dinner this evening with the pearls of your choice.”

“Really? This is the first I’ve seen of them.”

Last October, in Constantinople, the Byzantine head of church and state Emperor Manuel Comnenos had hosted Eleanor and Louis for three weeks in the Great Palace overlooking the Bosporus. It was their first major rest stop of the Crusade, and while the first few days had been glorious, the excesses of stimulation wore on her more than travel. There’d been feasts of interminable courses, entertainments that made Eleanor’s skin crawl of naked slaves, male, female, and eunuch cavorting with exotic beasts, while Orthodox monks chanted round the clock, doleful strains echoing. There’d been the endless signing of treaties with grandiose oratory, and at the end, a scolding in writing from Abbot Suger at the Cathedral of St. Denis to whom Louis had appealed for more funds. The slaughter at Cadmos occurred only a few weeks later, while Louis was still sulking.

“Let us have a look, then.” Eleanor crossed the chambers to the bed where a chest of black pearls glistened beside a chest of white. She plunged a hand into the dark gems. They were not as perfectly formed as the white pearls, yet they held a lustre that came from deep within the stone. “You say my husband was cheerful. Was he also clear of eye?”

“Well, milady, a servant has not the liberty to gaze upon the face of a monarch, but I know your concern on the matter of the poppies, so I paid heed to his movements and to his breath, and he seemed to have some fresh resolve.”

“Why do you suppose that is?”

“They are saying in the kitchens that Prince Raymond abandoned his quest today to liberate Aleppo.”

“Abandoned? That does not sound like my uncle. Are you certain they didn’t mean postponed until the weather is more favourable or the Seljuks are distracted by some holy day?”

“Marie Thèrese and I only heard the remark in passing, and we dared not seek more information, lest it should...”

“Lest it should what, Jocie?”

Feverish blooms rose to Jocelyne’s cheeks. “Lest it should call more attention to your…feelings for the prince.”

Eleanor dropped her face into her hands. “Where is the sin in adoring one’s uncle?”

“They envy you, Madame. Not everyone knows such affection.”

“Therefore, we must stomp it out in others? By now, I’m sure that everyone from the Holy Father to the beggars in Jerusalem know that Louis and his Queen Eleanor do not enjoy connubial relations. We have yet to produce a male heir, and heirs, as much as we might wish, are not windborne. But what does any of that have to do with today’s Council? I saw the prince only yesterday, and he had no plans to back down…”

Thoughts began to take shape, and Jocelyne resumed stitching at twice the speed.

Eleanor moved the chests on the bed, so that she sat between two inestimable fortunes. “You mentioned that the king would like me to wear pearls in my hair tonight in a style of my choosing.”

“That’s right. He has arranged for a private dinner, the two of you, on the prince’s rooftop terrace.”

“Goodness, there is no end to the surprises. Have you any ideas for a coiffeur?”

“I’ve been mulling over a few. There were some splendid styles in the harem at Constantinople.”

“Then first, we must draw a bath. I reek of Turkish pony. I also have a favour to ask.”

“Of course.”

“When dinner with my husband is firmly underway, I would like you and Marie Thèrese to deliver these chests to Prince Raymond with instructions that they be sent on the next ship to Talmont—tonight, if at all possible, and thence to
Reine du Ciel
. They should be well sealed and disguised as…I don’t know, scrap armour or wholesale relics from lesser saints. He may take what’s required from the pearls to cover expenses.”

“Consider it done.”

“Thank you.” Eleanor unclasped the shoulder brooch of her riding mantle. “Now, I’m breathless to hear other details from Council that may have passed through the kitchens.”

“It would be my pleasure, Madame.”

St. Jacques de la Rivière
Atlantic Pyrenees
PRESENT DAY

“Are you Antoinelle Jenah?”

“Toinelle, yes. You must be Silvie. I’m delighted to meet you. Could you give me a moment, please? I have a client on the phone.”

“Of course.”