“Walk slowly back towards me, Dr Tanner.”
Alice realised that the ground was shifting. She felt the tremor vibrating through her feet and legs, a low rumbling deep in the ground, getting stronger and more insistent every second.
Marie-Cecile suddenly seemed to hear it too. Confusion momentarily clouded her face. Another thump shook the chamber. This time there was no doubt it was an explosion. A blast of cold air swept through the cave. Behind Marie-Cecile, the lantern started to shake as the stone labyrinth cracked open and started to fragment.
Alice ran back to Audric. The ground was fracturing in two, crumbling beneath her as solid stone and ages-old earth started to split apart. Debris rained down on her from every corner as she jumped to avoid the holes that were opening up all around.
“Give them to me!” Marie-Cecile shouted, turning the gun towards Alice. “Do you really think I’m going to let her take these from me?”
Her words were swallowed by the sounds of falling rock and stone as the chamber collapsed in on itself.
Audric got to his feet and spoke for the first time.
“Her?” he said. “No, not Alice.”
Marie-Cecile spun round to see what Audric was looking at.
She screamed.
In the darkness Alice could see something. A glow, a white glow, almost like a face. In terror, Marie-Cecile swung the gun back to Alice. She hesitated, then pulled the trigger. Long enough for Audric to move between them.
Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion.
Alice screamed. Audric sank to his knees. The force of the shot propelled Marie-Cecile backwards and she lost her balance. Her fingers clawed at the air, grasping, desperate, as she slipped into the vast chasm that had opened up in the ground.
Audric was lying on the ground, blood spreading out from the bullet hole in the middle of his chest. His face was the colour of paper and she could see the blue veins beneath the thin veneer of skin.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” she cried. “There might be another explosion. It could come down at any moment.”
He smiled. “It is over, Alice,” he said softly. “A la perfin. The Grail has protected its secrets, as it did before. It would not let her take what she wanted.”
Alice was shaking her head. “No, the cave was mined, Audric,” she said. “There might be another bomb. We have to get out.”
There will be no more,“ he said. There was no doubt in his voice. ”It was the echo of the past.“
Alice could see it hurt him to speak. She lowered her head to his. There was a gentle rattling in his chest and his breathing was shallow and faint. She tried to staunch the bleeding, but she could see it was hopeless.
“I wanted to know how she spent her final moments. You understand? I couldn’t save her. She was trapped inside and I couldn’t get to her.” He gasped in pain. Took another gulp of air.
“But this time…”
Finally, Alice accepted what she had instinctively known from the moment she had walked into Los Seres and seen him standing in the doorway of the little stone house in the folds of the mountain.
This is his story. These are his memories.
She thought of the family tree, so lovingly and painstakingly compiled.
“Sajhe,” she said. You are Sajhe“.”
For a moment, life flicked in his amber eyes. A look of intense pleasure flooded his dying face.
When I woke, Bertrande was beside me. Someone had covered us with cloaks to keep the cold out-“
“Guilhem,” said Alice, knowing it was true.
“There was a terrible thundering. I saw the stone ledge above the entrance collapse. The boulder was sent crashing to the ground in a welter of stone and flint and dirt, trapping her inside. I couldn’t get to her,” he said, his voice trembling. “To them.”
Then it stopped. Everything was suddenly quiet, still.
“I didn’t know,” he said again in anguish. “I had given my word to Alais if anything happened to her I would ensure the Book of Words was safe, but I didn’t know. I didn’t know if Oriane had the book or where she was.” His voice faded to a whisper. “Nothing.”
“So the bodies I found were Guilhem and Alais,” she said, a statement, not a question.
Sajhe nodded. We found Oriane’s body a little way down the hillside. The book was not with her. Only then did I know.“
“They died together saving the book. Alais wanted you to live, Sajhe. To live and care for Bertrande, your daughter in every way but one.”
He smiled. “I knew you would understand,” he said. The words slipped from between his lips like a sigh. “I have lived too long without her. Every day I felt her absence. Every day I wished I had not been cursed, to be forced to live my life, while all those whom I love grow old and die. Alais, Bertrande…”
He broke off. Her heart ached for him.
“You must not feel guilty any longer, Sajhe. Now you know what happened, you must forgive yourself.”
Alice could feel him slipping from her.
Keep him talking. Don’t let him go to sleep.
“There was a prophecy,” he said, “that in the lands of the Pays d’Oc, in our times, one would be born whose destiny was to bear witness to the tragedy that overtook these lands. Like those before me – like Abraham, Methuselah, Harif -I did not wish it. But I accepted it.”
Sajhe gasped for breath. Alice drew him closer, cradling his head in her arms. When?“ she tried to say. ”Tell me.“
“Alais summoned the Grail. Here. In this very chamber. I was twenty five years old. I had returned to Los Seres, believing my life was about to change. I believed I could woo Alais and be loved by her.”
“She did love you,” Alice said fiercely.
“Harif taught her to understand the ancient language of the Egyptians,” he continued, smiling. “It seems that some trace of that knowledge lives yet in you. Using the skills Harif had taught her and from her knowledge of the parchments, we came here. Like you, when the time came, Alais knew what to say. The Grail worked through her.”
“How…” Alice stumbled. What happened?“
“I remember the smooth touch of the air on my skin, the flicker of the candles, the beautiful voices spiralling in the dark. The words seemed to flow from her lips, hardly spoken. Alais stood before the altar, Harif with her.”
“There must have been others.”
There were, but… you will think it strange, but I can hardly remember. All I could see was Alais. Her face, rapt in concentration, a slight line between her eyes where she frowned. Her hair flowed down her back like a sheet of water. I saw nothing but her, was aware of nothing but her. She held the cup in her hands and spoke the words. Her eyes flew open in a single moment of illumination. She gave the cup to me and I drank.“
His eyelids were fluttering open and shut rapidly, like the beating of a butterfly’s wings.
“If your life was such a burden to you, why did you carry on without her?”
“Perque? he said with surprise. Why? Because it was what Alais wanted. I had to live to tell the story of what happened to the people of these lands, here within these mountains and the plains. To make sure that their story did not die. That is the purpose of the Grail. To help those to bear witness. History is written by the victorious, the liars, the strongest, the most determined. Truth is found most often in the silence, in the quiet places.”
Alice nodded. “You did this, Sajhe. You made a difference.”
“Guilhem de Tudela wrote a false record of the Crusade against us for the French. La Chanson de la Croisade, he called it. When he died, an anonymous poet, one who was sympathetic to the Pays d’Oc instead, completed it. La Canso. Our story.”