1212. The Chartrain, France.
Gui is a troubled priest who has been shielding his secret
family for years. Agnes, his beloved, is a falsely-accused heretic he rescued
from the Inquisition’s pyre. Their son Etienne, unaware of his father’s true
identity, is coming of age. Tired of his lowly shepherd’s life, he seeks
adventure. The Crusade is the perfect opportunity to prove himself to the
world. He has no reason to suspect the
men offering him passage overseas are not what they seem.
Discovering that Etienne has been sold into slavery, Gui and
Agnes set off to find him. If Gui is ever to tell his son the truth, he must
give up his comfortable compromises and fight the battle of his life against
the institution he has served devoutly.
Meanwhile, Agnes guards a secret of her own; she must face
her past in a confrontation with the venal Amaury, Lord of Maintenon, that will
either set her free or claim her life.
If they are to save their son and expose the slave trade,
they must risk everything to overcome the powerful enemies who will stop at
nothing to protect their positions and silence them.
Excerpt
Prologue
That evening, drawn by the noise from the streets below, Gui
laid aside his manuscript and peered over the balcony. Three men shuffled in
irons behind a plough horse. The prisoners had been sentenced to suffer for
their own good. The purifying flame would cleanse their souls, and bestow a
last chance of salvation before the fires of Hell. Although he had been clerk
to the inquisitor for weeks now, this was the first time that he had witnessed
a blood punishment and seen the faces of the convicts; faces just like any
other. Among them, he knew, was Estève Le Coudray. A salt merchant from the
Languedoc with a kind face and a hearty laugh who had been condemned by a
testimony the Inquisition had paid for.
As the procession drew level with the balcony, someone in
the crowd threw a chunk of masonry. It struck Le Coudray with such force that
Gui heard the man’s jaw crack. Large crimson gobs spilled from his mouth. Gui
felt his legs yield beneath him. A fist squeezed inside his stomach, releasing
a wave of nausea - I did this.
Staggering backwards onto his bench, he sat, heart racing, as the jeers
of the crowd built to a crescendo. Any moment now, he would smell the smoke.
Transcription scattered at his feet, Gui ran his fingers
through his hair, trying to chase out the images from the morning’s trial. But
all he could think of was the girl as they took her away, eyes locked onto his
as though there was no other living soul in the world. He jumped up and closed
the shutter. The noise of the crowd dulled. Gui paced the cell. The day after
next, Agnes Le Coudray would be in shackles, stumbling along the cobbles below
to her final agony. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it,
for him it is a sin. The words of St James had his heart pumping hard against
his better judgement.
The wooden shutters muffled the din, but they did not impede
the vapours of oak moss, garlanded by spectators to veil the stench of burning
flesh. It was the same perfume that his
mother used on her deathbed to disguise her decay. Gui felt his gorge rise. He reached for the
rosary attached to his belt. It was his mother’s gift to him just months before
he entered the Cathedral. On his twelfth
birthday, he had sat at her bedside, her icy hand in his, as death made its
mask of her face.
‘Deliver the weak and needy from the hands of the wicked.’
She pressed the rosary into his palm. ‘For the love of God, may you never
falter in your devotion to His mercy.’
Her last words told him of her pride at his calling. He
wondered now, as he recalled that beautiful girl blinking back her tears, if
his mother would still be proud.
Outside, the crowd exalted. Plumes of smoke curled over the
rooftops. Blood thrummed urgently in his ears. He pressed his palms together
and drew a deep breath. Deliver the weak and needy. Fist clenched tight over
the coral beads, he fled the room before the screams began. Sandals slapping on
the stone, he hurried to the chapel, and he prayed. First, for those poor souls
who burned for denying Rome, then, head lifted to the Heavens, he remembered
his mother.
Gui crossed the courtyard hooded in the cloak of a cathedral
canon. He knew the corridors well enough to walk them blind. Palms slick with
sweat, he stole into the scriptorium, a jumble of standing desks, loose
parchments, and ribbon-bound ledgers. He tugged at a locked drawer of the
Abbot’s desk until it yielded, rummaging through the seals and scrolls to find
the key to the Cathedral’s prison. Then, fingers moving light, he thumbed
through his documents until he found the pages he had transcribed from Agnes Le
Coudray’s interrogation. The urgency of his endeavour pressed the air from his
chest. Still, he paused to tear them up before stuffing them into his cloak. He
peered out into the empty hallway. Quickening his pace, he glided over the cold
quarry tiles to the courtroom and the cell that lay below.
There was an hour to go before the Canons roused for Lauds -
the noose of time was tightening around his neck. In a matter of hours, her
bones would be ash. He tasted bile at the thought. Before him, narrow steps
spiralled down to blackness. Rust from the stolen key scratched at his damp
palm. Barely breathing, he placed one foot on the stone, as though he were
testing its solidity. Then he squeezed his eyes shut in prayer to a merciful
God, and, heart in free fall, stepped down into the abyss.
Gui squinted through the door’s grille. Agnes was hugged
into the corner of the cell, a shadowy outline in the near dark. She started at
his presence, inching back further against the wall, as though there were
succour to be found against the wet stone. A word of reassurance pressed at the
base of his throat, but it would not come. Not in this place, with the Devil at
his back.
One hand steadying the other, Gui weaved the crudely-cut key
into the keyhole and hunted for the lock. Voices from outside echoed
above. A moment of panic: if I fail, we
will both die here. It summoned brute force and clunk, the door yielded. Agnes
inched forward until she was close enough for him to hear her breath. In a
moment that seemed to stall the world, he felt her searching his intention.
Then, bobbing her head, she pushed at the door. He reached for her hand.
‘Quick,’ he managed. ‘Come with me.’
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Hana Cole is a novelist and historian. Born in Essex to an
Anglo-Italian family, she studied economics at the London School of Economics
and History at Oxford, where she gained her Masters. After living in Italy for
several years, she travelled widely in the Middle East and India before
returning to the UK. She has worked as a film subtitle translator, financial
analyst, and a yoga teacher. She now lives in Manningtree, Essex in the UK with
her husband, daughter, and two cats.
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