Love's Knife 12

Chapter 12

The Undercroft

Morning, Tuesday 19 April, Chateau Narbonnais

Beatriz’s eyes startled open on an unfamiliar ceiling and loud noises, screams in fact, she realised, as she surfaced to consciousness and wished she had not. She rolled her thumping head to one side and found herself in close proximity to Lluis’ slumbering face. His mouth. His eyelashes. Beatrix briefly closed her eyes on the agony of the hangover and opened them again, but Lluis was still there. She lifted the bedclothes a little and groaned quietly. They were both naked. He breathed gently, oblivious to the increasing commotion outside the chamber. Beatriz sat up gingerly. Her left temple throbbed. She fished her discarded tunic toward her with a foot and slipped it over her head. Familiar remorse rolled over her. She picked up one shoe and found the other beneath the bed. She stole toward the door. Would she never learn? Strong wine and pretty boys. Again! Had Imbert seen? Philippa? Who else knew? She couldn’t remember a thing. She might be pregnant. What an idiot she was. She lifted the latch.

‘Goodbye, fair songbird,’ Lluis said behind her.

She glanced at him, smiled, and stepped into the corridor moving away from his door as swiftly as possible. She could hear running feet. Sobs. A guard ran down the passage toward her and she stayed him for a moment. He swung around the axis of her hand at his elbow, interrupting his momentum. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Someone’s dead in the undercroft.’ He pulled his arm away and set off running again.

‘Someone…’ she echoed. She slipped on her shoes, tried to smooth her mussed hair, and followed him. Bertrand was standing at the bottom of the stone steps to the wine vault, looking up at her, white-faced.

‘What the devil?’ Raymond pushed past Beatriz.

‘You’d better come down, Father.’

‘What is it?’

‘There’s been a death.’ Bertrand’s voice was cracked and shocked. ‘Over here. You’d better come.’ Bertrand turned away. Raymond, and then Beatriz, clattered down the steps.