They rounded a bend. He could see a collection of small flint buildings, and then the first of the houses on the outskirts of Coustaussa. Small dwellings and a large whitewashed farm building next to a field of vines. Finally, the first indications that the battle had already begun. The bodies of a man and a woman were hanging from the branch of a holm oak. Their faces hooded and their hands tied behind their backs, twisting slowly round in the heat.
‘A warning to the rest,’ Authié said. Schmidt said nothing.
On the outskirts of the village, Authié saw a starburst of blood on the white wall of the farm building. Lying between the vines, the body of a teenage boy. He got out to examine the body, then walked back to speak to the officer in charge of the truck behind them.
‘He’s not dead yet. Take him to the square with the others.’
Two soldiers jumped down from the truck. Shocked back into consciousness, the boy started to struggle, his feet thrashing on the ground. The soldiers dragged him down towards the village, leaving a trail of blood in the dust.
Authié nodded with satisfaction when he reached the Place de la Mairie. So far, no attack. No ambush. Most of the inhabitants were already in the square. One of the other Feldgendarmerie trucks was parked across the rue de la Mairie, and Schmidt told their driver to park across the rue de l’Empereur, blocking the other escape route.
Authié got out.
‘Women and children that side,’ he ordered, pointing to the war memorial. ‘Men over there.’
The soldiers immediately started to push and shove the prisoners, making no allowances, no exceptions. Old and young, physically able or frail, jabbing and threatening as they had done in Couiza.
‘You expect the attack to come from below the village, not above it?’ Schmidt asked.
‘If they had intended to attack from the north, they would have made an attempt on us already,’ he said.
‘So what do we do? My men are asking.’ Schmidt paused. ‘They have heard stories.’
Authié glanced around at the faces of the German soldiers. The usual belligerence and bloodlust on some, but also confusion and fear on others. The
miliciens
were the same.
‘What stories?’ he demanded.
‘That the village is haunted,’ he said. ‘That these women are . . .’ He broke off, clearly embarrassed.
‘That the women are what, Sturmbannführer Schmidt?’ Authié said coldly.
‘That they are in league with . . . That they are ghosts, some say.’
Authié felt a wild rage sweep through him. Who else but Laval knew about the Codex? Had he talked?
‘Do you believe such stories?’ he managed to say.
The Nazi flushed. ‘Of course not.’
‘Well then,’ Authié said, making no attempt to hide his contempt. ‘They are your men. They will follow your orders.’
‘But what, precisely,
are
your orders, Major Authié?’ Schmidt said.
‘To wait,’ he replied. ‘To wait until she comes.’
COUSTAUSSA
S
andrine felt nothing, heard nothing.
The beating silence hung heavy over the waiting land. The air seemed to vibrate and shimmer and pulse. The heat, the cicadas, the sway of the wild lavender and shock-yellow genet among the thistles, the whispering wind of the Tramontana in the garrigue.
It was all her fault. Authié had come, but too soon. Before they were ready. All she had intended was to kill Authié and, with Monsieur Baillard’s help, drive the invaders once and for all from the Midi.
But she could see the bodies of a man and a woman hanging dead from the branch of the old holm oak and she’d heard gunfire on the outskirts of the village by the Andrieu farm.
It was her fault. She had gambled Coustaussa and everyone in it, so sure was she that her plan would work. She had lost. Every death was her responsibility. All she could do now was to try and save as many people as she could.
She peered out from the cover of the
capitelle
. Marianne and Lucie had taken up their position in the Camp Grand, while Suzanne and Liesl were in the ruins of the castle.
There was no sign of anyone else. Sandrine no longer thought Raoul would come. She no longer believed Monsieur Baillard would be able to help. In the end, the Codex was no more than a dream. A beautiful, but useless, myth.
It meant nothing in the end.
In these last moments of stillness, she tried not think about Eloise or Geneviève. Where were they? Coralie’s husband was missing too. And Raoul? She dropped her head on her arms, so tired of it all.
No one was coming. The land was silent and still. And although she feared what was to come, more than anything she wanted it to be over.
Forcing herself to act, Sandrine half crawled behind the low, long wall that ran alongside the track down towards the village. There was a gap of fifteen feet, maybe twenty, between the end of the wall and the first outbuildings of the old Andrieu farm. No cover, no shade. If Authié was waiting for her, watching from the blackened windows of the house beside the abandoned cemetery, this exposed patch of land was where the bullet would find her.
She assumed everyone had been taken to the Place de la Mairie while the soldiers searched the farms and houses. There was a sudden burst of machine-gun fire from the hills and the answering staccato chatter of an automatic weapon closer to hand. Sandrine’s thoughts shattered, like fragments of bright glass. She pulled her Walther P38 from her belt, the familiar weight of it reassuring in her hand.
Breaking cover, she ran, low and fast, until she reached the edge of the Sauzède property. She vaulted the low wall, then on to the next garden, zigzagging from one square of land to the next and coming into the village from the east.
She crossed the rue de la Condamine and into the tiny alleyway beside the round tower, giving her a clear view of the square.
Authié was there, she could feel it. Then she saw a ribbon of red blood and the body of a young boy lying on his back on the dusty ground. His right hand twitched and jerked, then fell still back to his side.
Still she couldn’t see him behind the ranks of grey jackets and black. The rattle of a machine gun from the ruins of the castle rent the air. Taken by surprise, a soldier jerked round and returned fire. A woman screamed and pulled her children to her, trying to shield them.
Jacques Cassou broke away from the group, trying to run to the safety of the rue de la Condamine. He was an easy target. Sandrine could only watch in horror as the Schmeissers ripped into him. His daughter Ernestine tried to catch him. But she was too slow, he was too heavy. Jacques staggered, dropped to his knees. The soldiers kept firing, this second hail of bullets bringing them both down.
Hearing the gunfire, Lucie and Marianne launched the first of the smoke canisters from the Camp Grand. It soared over the houses and landed at the edge of the square by the truck. Then a second canister, and another, releasing plumes of blue and pink and orange and yellow smoke into the stifling air. The soldiers were disorientated, cross-firing into one another’s positions. Sandrine realised they were nervous too. Whatever Authié had told them about the operation, they realised there was more to it than just another raid on a partisan stronghold.
‘Halten! Halten!’
The Sturmbannführer shouted the order to hold fire, repeating it in French. Discipline was immediately restored. But the hiatus had been long enough for the hostages to scatter. Some headed for refuge in the church or in the shaded undergrowth below the chemin de la Fontaine, others to the cellars of the presbytery. Marianne would do her best to smuggle everyone away.
As soon as the square was clear of civilians, Suzanne and Liesl launched the main assault from the castle. Their bullets raked the ground. A grenade exploded on impact with the war memorial. In response, the mixed German and French unit divided into two, some firing into the hills, others indiscriminately after the fleeing hostages. Through the coloured smoke and the dust, Sandrine glimpsed the blue berets of the Miliciens vanishing into the rue de la Peur and realised they intended to leave no witnesses.
Because of her plan, a plan that had failed, the whole village would die. She couldn’t let that happen. There was no choice but to give herself up in exchange for the hostages. Besides, she could see Authié now, standing with his right hand resting on the black bonnet of the car and his Mauser hanging loose in his left. He looked calm, disengaged, as the firefight raged around him.
Sandrine dropped the hammer on her pistol and stepped out into the light.
‘It’s me you want, not them. Let them go.’
It wasn’t possible that he should hear her and yet, despite the noise and the shouting, he did. He turned and looked straight at her. Those eyes, she thought. Was he smiling, she wondered, or did it pain him that it should end like this?
He said her name. Her real name. The soft music of it hung suspended in the air. Threat or entreaty, she didn’t know, but she felt her resolve weaken. He said it again. And this time, it sounded bitter, false in his mouth. A betrayal. The spell was broken.
Sandrine lifted her arm. And fired.
PIC DE VICDESSOS
T
he sun was full in the sky when Audric Baillard and Guillaume Breillac cleared the crest of the hill. It had taken them three days to make their way south from Tarascon, evading the Nazi patrols. Baillard had seen the beginnings, and the ends, of many wars in his long life and knew that the last days were often the most dangerous. He knew that Dame Carcas had spoken the words in Carcaso to save her stronghold and still the ghost army had come. Even so, he believed his chance of success would be greater in the Vallée des Trois Loups.
‘This last part of the journey is my responsibility,’ he said. ‘I cannot ask you to go further.’
Guillaume nodded. ‘I’ll wait here. Keep watch.’
Baillard continued alone. After reading the words and allowing the text to take root in his mind, he had finally understood that the verses could be spoken only on behalf of another. That to offer one’s life willingly and freely, so that others might live, was what gave the words power.
That the greatest act of war was love.
Baillard now understood how, if the words were spoken, each person would see their own heart reflected back at them. The good would see the good they had done, the bad would see their own ill deeds. But, as he looked up at the pattern of the cross reflected on the face of the rock, the way the light danced and swayed between the branches of the oak trees, he prayed that he was not mistaken.
He hoped Raoul was back standing at Sandrine’s side. That each – Marianne and Suzanne, Liesl and Lucie, Geneviève and Eloise – would understand what she had to do and why. And still Baillard did not know whether the act of reading the words out loud would kill him. Whether he must die so that others might live, or whether merely to be prepared to sacrifice his own life was sufficient.
He waited a few moments more, until finally he was ready. Then he took the Codex from the pocket of his pale suit and began to read the seven verses out loud.
Come forth the spirits of the air. Come forth the armies of the air
.
From the blood of the land where once they fell, come forth in the final hour. Travel over the sea of glass. Travel over the sea of fire. The sea shall engulf you and fire shall cleanse you and you shall arrive at a place that you know and do not know. There, the bones of the fallen, the warriors, await you and time will be time no longer
.
Every death remembered
.
Then the broken tower will fall. The sepulchre will be rent asunder. The mountain stronghold will release those summoned by the courage of he who speaks: ‘Come forth the spirits of the air. Come forth the armies of the air.’
And though their number be ten thousand times ten thousand, they will heed you and they will answer. Those who died so others might live, those who gave their lives and now live, will hear your call. They will return to the land from which they came
.
And the ghost army shall carry with them the tools of their lives – sword and javelin and quill and plough – and they shall save those who shall come after. The land will rise and defend those who are pure of heart
.
Then, when the battle is over, they shall sleep once more
.
The air closed around the verses spoken. His words echoed away into silence.
Slowly, Baillard let his arm drop. For a moment, he stood in the green embrace of the glade. At first, nothing but a faint rumbling of thunder in the sky.
Then, he began to hear them. A movement in the trees, the earth breaking open. The shadows of those he had loved and had prayed to see again.
He let out a long and gentle sigh. No apocalypse, no destroying of all that was good, along with all that was bad, but the words made flesh. An army of ghosts, the spirits of the fallen, was coming to stand upon the land where once they fell.
‘
A la perfin
,’ he murmured. At last.
He smiled. And might he see her now? Would she come in the army of ghosts?
Baillard heard a crack, sharp in the silence of the valley. He looked down and saw blood. He stared at the stain spreading on his jacket, red against white. A hole where a bullet had hit him in the side.
His body met his mind. Pain suddenly hit and his legs buckled. Then he was falling. He held the Codex to him. The vow he had taken in the labyrinth cave so many years ago had kept him living beyond his allotted time, but could it be that he was dying now?
A stranger broke out of the cover of the trees, striding towards him, a gun in his right hand. Short black hair, dark skin, cold eyes. Baillard did not know him, though he had met his kind many times before. There was blood on his clothes. Baillard prayed it did not belong to Guillaume Breillac.
‘Where is it?’
‘Who are you?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
Many times during his long and lonely life, Baillard had found the burden he carried too much to bear. Now he discovered in himself a desperate desire to live.