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I have no idea of the layout of this castle, so different from the Aquitaine stronghold of Montreuil-Bonnin. I follow my instinct left, come to a narrow passageway cut into the cold, pale stone and slide into its slender darkness. It takes me to an open balcony where I can look down on thecontinuing confusion in the courtyard. I see with satisfaction that Geoffrey and Agnes are still waiting for the servants to show them to their accommodation. Geoffrey’s angry impatience is being transferred into the nervous and dangerous prancing of his warhorse in the crowded space.
    Safe in my unseen eyrie, I observe Geoffrey. The last time I saw him he was a young man. Now he is in his early thirties and powerfully built. His straight black hair is combed back from his pale face and cut short at the neck, soldier-fashion. His eyes are deeply set and an intense golden brown. They seem to bore into everything he looks at. His nose is large and curved. I have heard that he keeps three concubines besides Agnes. She must hate that. He is close friends with the northern French King, Henri. ‘Anjou,’ uncle Guillaume declares, ‘is a treacherous man in every respect, inflicting assaults and intolerable pressures on his neighbours .’ His clothes are plain black and brown but made from fine cloth. His only ornament is a great saucer brooch of Viking design, holding his cloak at one shoulder. The tense and ready way that he carries himself speaks more of his blood line than any fine clothes might.
    Agnes, however, has tricked herself out like a queen. A coronet glints beneath her head-veil. Jewels hang from her ears. Her fur-lined cloak is held in place at the shoulders with two huge black brooches in the shape of eagles and a thick gold chain hangs between them. Agnes is a decade older than Geoffrey, but she is still a fine-looking woman with her dark red hair, yet her face looks well lived in. The worry over his philandering and her own ambition, perhaps.
    Donkeys laden with goods are being led across the cobbles of the courtyard or are stubbornly leaning backwards, holding their place, as their owners pull and pull on the reins. Soldiers in livery with large horses clatter towards the stables. Maids run frantically from kitchen to hall with loaves of bread and flagons of wine. This is an important assembly with much business to be conducted . Apart from the usual paying of taxes and legal rulings, the new Count of Toulouse will be crowned; since I am seventeen and nearly of age, I will be formally handed back to my father; and my sister will be betrothed to Pierre, heir to Carcassonne.The noble families from all across Occitania and Catalonia are gathering to witness these events.
    I turn from the scene in the bailey and continue out of the sunshine and into the chill gloom of the narrow stone corridor, impatient now to find my family. I take a staircase that leads down into darkness. The steps wind round and round, worn unevenly in the centre by the passage of many feet. With one hand I hold up the hem of my dress and my other hand follows the cool contour of the spiralling wall. Then, with dismay, I see the top of a woman’s head below me. One of us must go all the way back up or down as there is no room to pass. The lady below is looking down at her feet and has not heard my steps. As we come face to face, hand to hand, bathed in bright light from an arrow slit, she exclaims ‘Oh!’ at the unanticipated encounter, and, after a moment of staring into my face, ‘Oh!’ again. I am looking into the loved and longed for face of my sister.
    ‘Raingarde!’
    She moves up another step, as close as possible in the narrow and precarious stairwell and we hug each other tightly for a long time, as if we will never let go.
    ‘Almodis! I can hardly believe it’s really you, and not the phantom that I’ve hugged every night these many years!’
    Then we are silent and regard each other without blinking, holding hands, until I pivot suddenly