Labyrinth Read online

  Praise for Labyrinth

  ‘Labyrinth might be described as the thinking woman’s summer reading, chick lit with A levels . . . It is a testimony to Kate Mosse’s control over her material that the two narratives never seem to repeat or collide or, indeed, swamp one another . . . Mosse wears her learning so lightly, knitting her historical research so neatly into her narrative, that we never get the slightest sense of being preached or lectured to. In this she is reminiscent of those twin goddesses of popular historical fiction, Jean Plaidy and Mary Renault’ Guardian

  ‘Labyrinth is a reader’s Holy Grail, mixing legend, religion, history, past and present in a heart-wrenching, thrilling tale. Eat your heart out, Dan Brown, this is the real thing’

  Val McDermid

  ‘A lovely, intelligent novel of discovery and loss, generous in its historical scope and intimate in its tender details’

  Nicci Gerrard

  ‘An old-fashioned romance cum spiffing adventure story . . . Mosse has done her homework. She puts in lots of colourful, sensual detail about landscapes, clothes, domestic interiors’ The Times

  ‘It is the freedom to luxuriate in a fully realised work that makes Mosse’s novel such a pleasurable read . . . Mosse infuses each scene with such depth of atmospheric detail that full immersion is inevitable . . . Mosse wields admirable control over the vast body of her material and manoeuvres through it with subtlety and grace’

  Mslexia magazine

  ‘An admirably bold endeavour . . . The settings are evocative . . . There are also some powerful dramatic scenes . . . Overall, the message that “through the shared stories of our past, we do not die” is movingly proclaimed. That life’s true “elixir” is love, “handed down from generation to generation”, becomes beautifully clear and makes an uplifting ending to this intriguing . . . passionate book’

  Sunday Times

  ‘This year’s gripping romp . . . Mosse’s novel is always intelligently written. Her love of the location around Carcassonne . . . is evident from her generous descriptions of the city and the surrounding countryside; and her research into the details of the Cathars’ lives and language is evidently extensive . . . Labyrinth will fulfil everyone’s expectations for it, not least because of Mosse’s passion for the subject matter and her narrative verve’ Observer

  ‘Labyrinth has all the ingredients of a summer blockbuster’

  Daily Mail

  ‘An elegantly written time-slip novel set in France. There’s medieval passion and modern-day conspiracy, all revolving around three hidden books’ Independent

  ‘There is nothing like a lovely long luscious journey through the French Pyrenees, and that is what Kate Mosse provides in her latest novel, Labyrinth . . . a spellbinding novel that slips between the present day and the thirteenth century . . . Mosse mixes a Grail adventure with passion and great writing in a book that for once features two feisty lead women’ New Books

  ‘Prepare to be chilled by Kate Mosse’s archeological thriller’

  Red

  ‘A thumping read: Mosse creates a world so complete I began to miss it before the last page. More intriguing than Dan Brown, a conundrum with lasting depth and vigour, Labyrinth captivates from the first page until the final twist’

  Denise Mina, author of Deception

  To my father, Richard Hugh Mosse

  (30 May 1924 – 18 May 2011)

  A man of integrity – a modern-day chevalier

  To Greg, as always, for all things –

  past, present and yet to come

  LABYRINTH

  Kate Mosse

  Table of Contents

  Praise for Kate Mosse

  Dedication

  Title Page

  Author’s Note

  Epigraph

  Map

  Prologue

  I – Pic de Soularac Sabarthès Mountains Southwest France

  II – Los Seres Southwest France

  III – Chartres Northern France

  IV – Pic de Soularac Sabarthès Mountains

  The Cité on the Hill

  Chapter 1 – Carcassona

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11 – Pic de Soularac Sabarthès Mountains Southwest France

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14 – Chartres

  Chapter 15 – Foix

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17 – Carcassona

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22 – Toulouse

  Chapter 23 – Carcassonne

  Chapter 24 – Chartres

  Chapter 25 – Toulouse

  The Guardians of the Books

  Chapter 26 – Besièrs

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30 – Carcassonne

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34 – Carcassona

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39 – Carcassonne

  Chapter 40 – Ariège

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44 – Carcassona

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47 – Besièrs

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56 – Carcassona

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  The Return to the Mountains

  Chapter 63 – Sabarthès Mountains

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71 – Montségur

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73 – Sabarthès Mountains

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75 – Montségur

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77 – Pic de Soularac

  Chapter 78 – Los Seres

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80 – Ariège

  Chapter 81 – Pic de Soularac

  Chapter 82 – Pic de Soularac

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Selected Glossary of Occitan Words

  Select Bibliography

  Reading Group Notes

  Labyrinth Walk

  Author Biography

  By Kate Mosse

  Copyright Page

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Historical Note

  In March 1208, Pope Innocent III preached a Crusade against a sect of Christians in the Languedoc. They are now usually known as Cathars. They called themselves Bons Chrétiens; Bernard of Clairvaux called them Albigensians and the Inquisitional Registers refer to them as ‘heretici’. Pope Innocent aimed to drive the Cathars from the Midi and restore the religious authority of the Catholic Church. The northern French barons who joined his Crusade saw an opportunity to acquire land, wealth and trading advantage by subjugating the fiercely independent southern nobility.

  Although the principle of crusading had been an important fixture of medieval Christian life since the late eleventh century — and during the Fourth Crusade at the siege of Z
ara in 1204 Crusaders had turned on fellow Christians — this was the first time a Holy War had been preached against Christians and on European soil. The persecution of the Cathars led directly to the founding of the Inquisition in 1233 under the auspices of the Dominicans, the Black Friars.

  Whatever the religious motivations of the Catholic Church and some of the Crusade’s temporal leaders — such as Simon de Montfort — the Albigensian Crusade was ultimately a war of occupation and marked a turning point in the history of what is now France. It signified the end of the independence of the South and the destruction of many of its traditions, ideals and way of life.

  Like the term ‘Cathar’, the word ‘Crusade’ was not used in medieval documents. The army was referred to as ‘the Host’ — or ‘l’Ost’ in Oc. However, since both terms are now in common usage, I’ve sometimes borrowed them for ease of reference.

  Note on Language

  In the medieval period, the langue d’Oc — from which the region of Languedoc takes its name — was the language of the Midi from Provence to Aquitaine. It was also the language of Christian Jerusalem and the lands occupied by the Crusaders from 1099, and spoken in some parts of northern Spain and northern Italy. It is closely related to Provençal and Catalan.

  In the thirteenth century, the langue d’oil — the forerunner of modern-day French — was spoken in the northern parts of what is now France.

  During the course of the invasions of the south by the north, which began in 1209, the French barons imposed their language on the region they conquered. From the middle of the twentieth century, there has been an Occitan language revival, led by authors, poets and historians such as René Nelli, Jean Duvernoy, Déodat Roché, Michel Roquebert, Anne Brenon, Claude Marti and others. At the time of writing, there is a bilingual Oc/French school in La Cite in the heart of the medieval citadel of Carcassonne and the Occitan spellings of towns and regions appear alongside the French spellings on road signs.

  In Labyrinth, to distinguish between the inhabitants of the Pays d’Oc and the French invaders, I have used Occitan or French accordingly. As a result, certain names and places appear in both French and Oc — for example, Carcassonne and Carcassona, Toulouse and Tolosa, Béziers and Besièrs.

  Extracts of poetry and sayings are taken from Proverbes & Dictons de la langue d’Oc collected by Abbé Pierre Trinquier and from 33 Chants Populaires du Languedoc.

  Inevitably there are differences between medieval Occitan spellings and contemporary usage. For the sake of consistency, I have for the most part used La Planqueta by André Lagarde — an Occitan — French dictionary — as my guide. For further reference a glossary is provided at the end of this book.

  And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

  Gospel According to St John, 8:32

  L’histoire est un roman qui a été, le roman est une histoire

  qui aurait pu être

  History is a novel that has been lived, a novel is

  history that could have been

  E & J de Goncourt

  Tên përdu, jhamâi së rëcôbro

  Time lost can never be regained

  Medieval Occitan proverb

  PROLOGUE

  I

  Pic de Soularac Sabarthès Mountains Southwest France

  MONDAY 4 JULY 2005

  A single line of blood trickles down the pale underside of her arm, a red seam on a white sleeve.

  At first, Alice thinks it’s just a fly and takes no notice. Insects are an occupational hazard at a dig, and for some reason there are more flies higher up the mountain where she is working than at the main excavation site lower down. Then a drop of blood splashes on to her bare leg, exploding like a firework in the sky on Guy Fawkes night.

  This time she does look and sees that the cut on the inside of her elbow has opened again. It’s a deep wound, which doesn’t want to heal. She sighs and pushes the plaster and lint dressing tighter against her skin. Then, since there’s no one around to see, she licks the red smear from her wrist.

  Strands of hair, the colour of soft brown sugar, have come loose from under her cap. She tucks them behind her ears and wipes her forehead with her handkerchief, before twisting her ponytail back into a tight knot at the nape of her neck.

  Her concentration broken, Alice stands up and stretches her slim legs, lightly tanned by the sun. Dressed in cut-off denim shorts, a tight white sleeveless T-shirt and cap, she looks little more than a teenager. She used to mind. Now, as she gets older, she sees the advantage of looking younger than her years. The only touches of glamour are her delicate silver earrings, in the shape of stars, which glint like sequins.

  Alice unscrews the top of her water bottle. It’s warm, but she’s too thirsty to care and drinks it down in great gulps. Below, the heat haze shimmers above the dented tarmac of the road. Above her, the sky is an endless blue. The cicadas keep up their unrelenting chorus, hidden in the shade of the dry grass.

  It’s her first time in the Pyrenees, although she feels very much at home. She’s been told that in the winter the jagged peaks of the Sabarthès Mountains are covered with snow. In the spring, delicate flowers of pink and mauve and white peep out from their hiding places in the great expanses of rock. In early summer, the pastures are green and speckled with yellow buttercups. But now, the sun has flattened the land into submission, turning the greens to brown. It is a beautiful place, she thinks, yet somehow an inhospitable one. It’s a place of secrets, one that has seen too much and concealed too much to be at peace with itself.

  In the main camp on the lower slopes, Alice can see her colleagues standing under the big canvas awning. She can just pick out Shelagh in her trademark black outfit. She’s surprised they’ve stopped already. It’s early in the day to be taking a break, but then the whole team is a bit demoralised.

  It’s painstaking and monotonous work for the most part, the digging and scraping, the cataloguing and recording, and so far they’ve turned up little of significance to justify their efforts. They’ve come across a few fragments of early medieval pots and bowls, and a couple of late twelfth- or early thirteenth-century arrowheads, but certainly no evidence of the Palaeolithic settlement which is the focus of the excavation.

  Alice is tempted to go down and join her friends and colleagues and get her dressing sorted out. The cut smarts and her calves are already aching from squatting. The muscles in her shoulders are tense. But she knows that if she stops now, she’ll lose her momentum.

  Hopefully, her luck’s about to change. Earlier, she’d noticed something glinting beneath a large boulder, propped against the side of the mountain, neat and tidy, almost as if it had been placed there by a giant hand. Although she can’t make out what the object is, even how big it is, she’s been digging all morning and she doesn’t think it will be much longer before she can reach it.

  She knows she should fetch someone. Or at least tell Shelagh, her best friend, who is the deputy on the dig. Alice is not a trained archaeologist, just a volunteer spending some of her summer holiday doing something worthwhile. But it’s her last full day on site and she wants to prove herself. If she goes back down to the main camp now and admits she’s on to something, everybody will want to be involved, and it will no longer be her discovery.

  In the days and weeks to come, Alice will look back to this moment. She will remember the quality of the light, the metallic taste of blood and dust in her mouth, and wonder at how different things might have been had she made the choice to go and not to stay. If she had played by the rules.

  She drains the last drop of water from the bottle and tosses it into her rucksack. For the next hour or so, as the sun climbs higher in the sky and the temperature rises, Alice carries on working. The only sounds are the scrape of metal on rock, the whine of insects and the occasional buzz of a light aircraft in the distance. She can feel beads of sweat on her upper lip and between her breasts, but she keeps going until, finally, the gap underneath the boulder is big enou
gh for her to slide in her hand.

  Alice kneels down on the ground and leans her cheek and shoulder against the rock for support. Then, with a flutter of excitement, she pushes her fingers deep into the dark, blind earth. Straight away, she knows her instincts are right and that she’s got something worth finding. It is smooth and slimy to the touch, metal not stone. Grasping it firmly and telling herself not to expect too much, slowly, slowly she eases the object out into the light. The earth seems to shudder, reluctant to give up its treasure.

  The rich, cloying smell of wet soil fills her nose and throat, although she barely notices. She is already lost in the past, captivated by the piece of history she cradles in the palms of her hands. It is a heavy, round buckle, speckled black and green with age and from its long burial. Alice rubs at it with her fingers and smiles as the silver and copper detail starts to reveal itself underneath the dirt. At first glance, it looks to be medieval too, the sort of buckle used to fasten a cloak or robe. She’s seen something like it before.

  She knows the danger of jumping to conclusions or of being seduced by first impressions, yet she can’t resist imagining its owner, long dead now, who might have walked these paths. A stranger whose story she has yet to learn.

  The connection is so strong and Alice is so absorbed that she doesn’t notice the boulder shifting on its base. Then something, some sixth sense, makes her look up. For a split second, the world seems to hang suspended, out of space, out of time. She is mesmerised by the ancient slab of stone as it sways and tilts, and then gracefully begins to fall towards her.

  At the very last moment, the light fractures. The spell is broken. Alice throws herself out of the way, half tumbling, half slithering sideways, just in time to avoid being crushed. The boulder hits the ground with a dull thud, sending up a cloud of pale brown dust, then rolls over and over, as if in slow motion, until it comes to rest further down the mountain.

  Alice clutches desperately at the bushes and scrub to stop herself slipping any further. For a moment she lies sprawled in the dirt, dizzy and disorientated. As it sinks in how very close she came to being crushed, she turns cold. Too close for comfort, she thinks. She takes a deep breath. Waits for the world to stop spinning.