The Sixth Key(33)

By now the fire in the city had taken hold of every building. Already the roofs were alight and he could hear the rafters letting go here and there. Matteu turned around to see that grey plumes were reaching upwards to the vaults of Heaven and a thunder of destruction came from every building.

‘They will come looking for blood, boy!’ the Templar said. ‘Get on or join the carcasses in the streets!’

At that moment there was a splitting and crackling, a spurting and bursting of wood and rafters and beams giving way and collapsing, feeding the fire and causing the flames to rise higher, and the heat to grow in intensity. Matteu could see almost nothing except smoke and more smoke.

The stallion reared up but the Templar held firm; it made a dance of its terror and then calmed down. Matteu stood, uncertain. He caught a hold of the stirrups but began to cough and cough from the smoke. The inferno was spewing out the acrid smell of burning hair and incense and suddenly there were sounds of horn blasts rising above the roars of the falling timbers and the growling, bellowing sounds of the conflagration.

‘What does that mean?’ Matteu asked.

‘The church is gone and likely all in it!’ the Templar told him fiercely. ‘The killing will go on for days. They believe that God will recognise who belongs to Him in heaven, for they do not know heretic from Catholic. If you do not hurry, it will be your fate as well, and I will run you through to save them the trouble.’

It was true. They would take him for a Cathar. He thought he could hear the rumble of the warhorses and the cries of the knights and routiers. His heart, his breath, his muscles, his thoughts, all of him grew terrified. He tried again to put a foot to the stirrup and with help from the knight he lifted himself behind the great man, barely managing to stay on the horse because of his fear.

The knight pulled down his visor and dug heels into the horse’s flank. The animal left a trail of dust that mingled with the smoke all the way through the gate.

And so it was. His master would not miss him, there were plenty of boys to take his place. Likewise he would not miss the temperamental, violent ways of a man who liked to box him in the ear for sport. What this Templar wanted with him Matteu could not guess, and though this did not sit easy on his brow, he told himself that he had always been good at following his ‘knowing’. This alone had saved him in the hovels of Barcelona after his mother’s death; this knowing had taken his feet to that boat in the harbour and had showed him to hide in that French galley; and it was this knowing that directed him now, out of the howling pit that was the city of Béziers and into a future unknown.

He hugged the horse with his knees and held tight to the Templar as they rode over the bodies of the dead but before they reached the bridge, the Templar said to him, ‘Take one last look, boy! The God of the church that you once knew is now dead for you!’

Matteu looked behind him: he saw nothing but a trail of smoke. Ash fell from above, like grey snow. He knew he would never be able to walk into a church again.





12


Deodat

‘You could not possibly have come at a better time, my dear Watson.’

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘The Red-Headed League’


Arques, France, 1938

‘She wanted you to have it, Rahn,’ Deodat Roche said, puffing on his meerschaum pipe, which was shaped like a lion’s head. ‘She cared a great deal for you, as you know.’

Rahn sat sprawled on a wicker chair in Deodat’s drawing room before a great fire of oak. The train had arrived that afternoon and he had paid a local to take him to where Deodat lived – a place as far from Berlin as the moon, or so it seemed to Rahn. For here, in Arques, he felt like himself again.

He looked at the pleasant glow of the hearth that fell on the worn oriental rugs, the mahogany furniture and the dozens and dozens of books lining the walls of the sizeable library. He took in the faint perfume wafting from the rosemary and thyme bunches that hung from the blackened rafters, alongside sausages and ropes of garlic. Nothing had changed.

Rahn and Deodat sat together in an easy silence, broken momentarily by the housekeeper, a large woman with a severe face and a thick mass of greying hair that she tamed into a knot at the nape of her neck. Yes, a formidable woman was Madame Sabine, who in her prime had been the headmistress of an illustrious girl’s school and whose ability to command, organise and control young and great minds alike had not faded in her waning years. She had a tray of coffee in her hands and a look on her face that would curdle milk. She set the tray down.

‘I’ll leave you to pour, but mind, don’t spill it!’ she snapped. Then to Rahn, ‘Bed by ten o’clock! I’ll hold you personally responsible if the magistrate’s arthritis suffers because you’ve kept him up.’ This was followed by a hard stare, which bespoke her expectations, whereupon she turned on her heel and stalked out of the room.