There is little else in Narvonne so macabre as the monument to death piled up under the city of Rocher de la Garde. Oh, there are certainly crypts beneath other Cathedrals in our Kingdom - the Tomb of Saint Camiel, in Lutetia, comes to mind - but nowhere else, in all my travels, have I encountered human bones and skulls arranged artistically. I cannot conceive of what possessed Adélard to order such a thing, nor of what must have been necessary to motivate his workers.
No surprise the man ended his life within the decade by walking off a high cliff above the ocean. His descendants claim he was sleep-walking.
* François du Lutetia, A History of Narvonne
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11th Day of New Summer’s Moon, 297 AC
The heels of Claire’s riding boots echoed on the stone of the dark passageway as she hurried away from the library of the Cathedral du Sainte Rahab. Already, the clang of metal striking metal was lost to her ears, and she whispered a prayer for Dame Etoile. She clutched the Marian Codex in her left arm, tucked against her body, and trailed the fingers of her right hand against the wall of the cramped passage. There was no light in here, save for the occasional thin beam of sun that fell from carefully placed light shafts high above.
“Right,” Clarisant murmured, casting her memory back to her childhood. “The first turn should be to the right.”
Like the ancient provincial capital of Vellatesia, Rocher de la Garde had originally been constructed by the Etalans as a port city, which they named Custos Petrae, or Guardian Rock. The limestone cliffs and outcroppings of the area provided ample material with which to build, and the greatest mass of stone, which stretched beneath the old fort and the Etalan temple, permitted architectural underpinnings which would otherwise have been impossible right on the coast.
Claire smiled as her fingers slid off limestone and found empty air - this was the passage she needed. She turned to the right, just as she had done as a young girl, giggling and chased by her brothers. Her mother had objected, of course, but her father insisted they know the old passages, and made a game of it.
“It could save their lives one day, Blasine,” he’d said gruffly, and that was the end of it. The next shaft of light revealed the top of a narrow, steep stair, and Claire slowed her steps. It would be ironic if she fell and broke her ankle, and had to lie there gasping until the knight hunting her came.
Behind her, echoing down the passage, came the voice of Sir Sagramor. “Daemons take the woman,” he cursed. “I can hardly see a thing.”
Claire grinned. If she was lucky, he would continue past the branching passageway she’d taken, and never find the stairs. If she was unlucky, however, there were plenty more opportunities to lose herself.
The old Etalan city had been devastated in the Cataclysm, like everywhere else in Narvonne. When Yves the Architect, the first Baron of Guardian Rock appointed by King Aurelius, came to the ruins with his retainers, he made the decision to raise his new castle on top of the ruins of the Etalan fort, and a Cathedral to Rahab atop the ruins of the wrecked temple. A hundred years later, with the city fully recovered and land within the walls too valuable to waste on boneyards, Baron Adélard had commanded all the bones of the dead disinterred, and stored in the ancient Etalan tunnels beneath the Cathedral, creating an extensive network of catacombs.
It was into these catacombs that Claire now descended, and here there were no longer light shafts with which to find her way. Instead, the dimness deepened until there was no difference between keeping her eyes open, or allowing them to shut. Sir Sagramor could have been a hand’s width in front of her face, and she never would have known until they collided. Now, instead of hewn and polished limestone, her fingers slid over carefully stacked bones, resting on shelves cut into the passage. The long leg bones, sometimes, but other times the grinning, empty-eyed skulls of her people long dead.
Claire swallowed and suppressed a shudder. Revulsion would do her no good now; she would have to see with her fingers, and match what she felt to memory. When she’d played hide and seek in the catacombs, with her brothers and sisters and cousins, her father had seen to it that all the sconces set in the walls were occupied by lit torches. His men had carefully scoured the catacombs ahead of each game, repairing any structural damage and marking places they deemed too unsafe for the children. At the time, it had merely been great fun: now, those games might save her life, just as her father had often said. Claire resolved that the son she carried in her belly would play in these tunnels, as well, one day, and know their twists and turns even better than she did.
The arrangements of skulls were her landmarks: there was only one skull for each corpse interred in the catacombs, and so there were less of them than the ever-present leg and arm bones. Most of them ran in horizontal lines, but those lines were also broken by ornamental patterns, which to her young mind had looked almost like doors, or towers. When she found the first, she knew that she was on the right track.
Claire had two options. The safest, but also the longest journey through the macabre tunnels, was to follow them all the way through the underlying limestone of the city to the ancient Etalan fort, upon which was built the foundations of her father’s keep. From there, she could make her way up past the great stone cisterns that collected rainwater, and then into the cellars where food and wine were stored, where she would find torches at the least, but also sooner or later servants and guards who would aid her.
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The second option was to make for one of the escape tunnels that Yves the Architect had planned for his descendents. The first Baron had survived the fall of the Etalan Empire and the Cataclysm that followed, and by all accounts was a man consumed by meticulous planning and preparation for the event of another catastrophe. If his new keep fell, he made certain that he and his family, and their most trusted retainers, could escape through the underground passages. Not content with merely making use of what was already present, he’d instructed his masons to carve new routes, leading to exits in strategically chosen locations throughout the city.
Claire was closest to the exit which opened into the river wall. The Rea bordered Rocher de la Garde on the east side, broad and brackish where it met the bay. In order to tame it, the Barons of the past had chosen to cage the waters, like an unpredictable and dangerous animal. Instead of a natural western bank, the river flowed along a high wall of stone, with three sets of stairs that descended to the water to allow access.
The problem was that the height of the Rea changed with the tide, and that Clarisant could not for the life of her recall what the current tide was. If it was low tide, or even midway to low tide, she could exit behind one of the stone stairs that led down to the river and then climb back up into the northeastern quarter of the city. From there, she could make her way to her family’s keep in the center of Rocher de la Garde, or even to Trist on the northern wall.
If it was high tide, she would find herself descending into water-filled tunnels, instead. She would have to turn around and backtrack, increasing the likelihood of getting lost in the catacombs.
Her fingers traced against the second formation of skulls. The next turning would take her to the river; continuing straight, however, would lead to the keep.
“Angelus be damned, woman, where are you? You’re going to get us both killed down here!” The strike of flint on steel, and then the barest hint of fiery light behind her. Sagramore had found the staircase, and followed her down. If he cornered her, Claire was under no illusions about having any ability to fight back against a trained knight. She and her unborn child would be utterly at the mercy of a man who had already made the decision to damn himself by fighting alongside daemons.
Clairsant turned to the right, slipping into the side passage. Would he be able to hear her boots on the stone? Perhaps the safest thing to do was to remain silent and still. But when Sagramor came to the passage, surely he would at least hold his torch out and look as far as the light extended, which meant she couldn’t stop yet.
Slowly, so slowly, she took one step forward, and then the next, trying to make as little noise as possible. Claire envied Trist’s ability to see in the darkness, then: if she could have one single piece of his faerie magic, that was what she would choose. Instead, she lived in fear that a bone had fallen since last her father had the catacombs cleaned, and that she would break it under her boot when she put her weight down.
The light from the torch grew brighter, and she risked a glance back. Sagramor must be nearly at the side passage, but he wasn’t visible yet. Claire’s eyes were nearly blinded by the light after walking in the darkness for so long. Had she gone far enough that she could hide beyond the reach of the torch? She took another step, and then she heard Sagramor’s boots scrape on limestone.
Claire froze, pressing herself up against the bones stacked along the wall of the passage. Her hand gripped the forehead of an ancient skull, and the rounded ends of femurs poked into her back. Would it be better to hold her breath, so that he could not hear her breathe? But then what if he stayed to long, and she couldn’t wait any longer, and ended up gasping for air?
“Damned woman,” Sagramor grumbled again, his voice echoing around her, and there he was, waving a guttering torch down the side corridor she’d taken. He looked right at her, right at her, and she was certain it was the end. But he continued turning his head back and forth between the right-hand passage, down which she hid, and the straightaway that continued on to the keep. Back and forth he looked, as if stymied by indecision. Then, with a sudden curse, Sagramor continued on toward the keep.
Clairsant half sank down the wall of bones to the floor, allowing herself to exhale a long, desperate breath. She was shaking, especially her hands. The light receded as Sagramore moved further and further away, until she was left once again in absolute darkness. How many minutes passed until she was no longer trembling, Claire could not have said, but eventually she began to move again.
If the rest of Sagramor’s men had been with him, she might have chanced turning around and going back to the Cathedral; but it seemed they had remained to fight Dame Etoile. She had to assume that they’d won, and thus returning was unsafe.
Clarisant continued on blindly, toward the river, counting turns in her memory and tracing her fingers along the bones of the dead. It was slow, so slow, and it almost seemed as if time had ceased to exist. If the bells of the cathedral rang anywhere above her, she could not hear them. Instead, she was disturbed to realize that the wall of bones was trembling.
At first, she thought it was simply her body shaking, but the farther she went, the greater the movement was, until Claire could no longer deny what she was feeling. Instead of a constant trembling, it was intermittent, as if some great shock was running through the stone. An impact.
By the time she reached the first set of stairs, Claire was certain that she was feeling the impact of siege missiles landing inside the city. The stone steps were damp, and she knew that there were twenty up, and then ten down before she would come to the concealed door out of the catacombs. Baron Yves had designed it that way, so that the river would not flood the tunnels. She counted as she went, and rested at the top.
This was the test, now. Claire would descend a step at a time; and if her foot plunged into the cold waters of the Rea, she would know that it was high tide, and she would have to turn back and take her chances with the Cathedral.
“One,” she whispered, putting her foot down gingerly. “Two.”
At every step, Clarisant expected to feel water. As she counted the numbers, her certainty increased. Surely, the next step would be the one.
“Nine,” she breathed, and gathered herself, then lowered her left boot onto the next step.
It was dry.
“Ten,” Clairsant sighed, and made her way for the door. She had to find her husband.