‘So you say,’ said the Captain, doubtfully. ‘But you are right: no one can take Montségur. Perhaps, if Raymond can make his peace with Louis and keep the Inquisition at bay, it will all blow over. Raymond hates Rome more than he hates the French.’
‘Meanwhile I have been preaching,’ said the bishop, folding his hands across his belly. ‘We had a close call at Avignonet: the Inquisition was a day away from catching us. But what happened then … I doubt it was worth the tempest it has brought down upon us. Pierre-Roger went too far. But he is still young, and very hot-headed. I should have restrained him. Do you know, he called for the Inquisitor’s skull as a wine cup? He did not get it, I am glad to say. His blood has cooled a good deal since then, and that is fortunate. He is a more sober man, and his preparations have been careful. I am proud of him. And while butchering the emissaries of Rome would not have been the course I would have chosen, it has rallied the country to us. I have been showing …’ He paused, and glanced at me. The Captain raised his eyebrows.
‘Ah. As it happens, you have young Petroc to thank for the crucifix,’ said the Captain. ‘It was Patch who found it in Constantinople and filched it from the Emperor.’ I shrugged, modestly, for the bishop was looking at me with new warmth. ‘You have it here?’ the Captain asked.
‘I do,’ replied the bishop.
‘Then guard it well – I am beginning to wonder if perhaps it should have remained secret. All sorts of rumours are abroad of some lost wonder that has been found again.’
The bishop suddenly looked uncomfortable, like an overgrown child sitting upon a secret too large for him. He rubbed his hands together nervously and cast his eyes about the room. They found a battered leather satchel in a corner and he rose and brought it over to us. After some ferreting around in its depths he drew out a dirty sheet of parchment.
‘One of Pierre-Roger’s men brought away the Inquisitor’s papers. They ended up with me, for Pierre-Roger thought they might contain some clue as to Rome’s intentions toward us.’
‘What did you find?’ asked the Captain, leaning forward, alert.
‘Pious, self-satisfied claptrap, and the depositions of our brethren, given under torture. And this.’
He held out the parchment. It was pale and new, dappled with dark brown blood where gory fingers had snatched it up. ‘A letter that will never be sent,’ the bishop was saying. I let the Captain take it. He opened the letter, read it quickly and then again, more slowly. Then he handed it to me, his face expressionless.
From Garsias d’Aure to André de Longjumeau
My brother in Christ, greetings.
We have but lately set out on our new Inquisition through the thicket of heresy that is the County of Toulouse. We have spent a week in Saissac hearing confessions, and before that Laurac, and other towns the sinful names of which you will find in the official report but which I have already put from my mind. We are bringing souls back to God, but in pitiful numbers that speak eloquently of the Enemy’s hold over these benighted lands.
As to that with which you have charged me: there are many rumours and more than rumours. At Laurac a woman described the heretic crucifix, stating under question that she had seen it with her own eyes. Three more men and a woman expressed their desire to see it. At Sorèze an old man declared that it was being taken about the land by the Albigenses’ so-called bishop and displayed to the credulous. It is variously described as a painted image of Our Lord, an image painted in blood, and a miraculous imprint of Our Lord himself. When questioned as to the nature of the image, the heretics claimed that it was an object of dread or fear. The woman of Laurac told us that, as the image clearly showed a dead man, and was composed of the blood of the corpse, it proved beyond doubt that Christ was a being of flesh and blood and therefore not the Son of God, in accordance with their blasphemous creed and indeed proving the truth of that creed to her satisfaction.
We have put several to the question in this town to which we have come this day, which is called Avignonet, and where the Albigensian bishop has lately been seen. As you instructed, I have conducted my questioning in private. And God has granted my prayer that I might find out some news that will delight his gracious and pious majesty. One man, a half-simpleton, the son of some knight with holdings to the south, I pressed harder, and from his addled mouth came gold. For the crucifix, he swore, rests in the hands of the heretic bishop, one Bertrand Marty, who is at this moment the guest of the lord of Mirepoix, a day’s ride from here. This lord, Pierre-Roger, is a known friend of the heretics. The so-called bishop intends to show the relic in the villages round about Mirepoix. With our strength, modest though it is, we may be confident of taking this rogue, and rest assured that our secret matter shall be
The letter ended abruptly. The breath I had been holding whistled out between my teeth.
‘Brother André,’ I muttered. I ran my forefinger over the parchment. Some of the blood was still faintly tacky. I scraped at it and it clung to my fingernail like tar. I did not know who Garsias d’Aure had been, though I could guess; but I knew that man for whom he had gathered his news.
I had not seen Andrew of Longjumeau since he had delivered the Crown of Thorns to Louis three years ago on a hot August day at Troyes. I had grown to like the polite, gentle Dominican, who I had first met when escaping from Constantinople with Letice. Clearly he had grown in the king’s affections since then, for it seemed I had not been the only one charged with finding the Mandylion of Edessa. Plainly, Andrew had made some guesses as to what the rumoured heretic crucifix might be, and had placed one of his men in the party of the Inquisition. Well, he would never know how close he had been to the prize.
‘Is the … the crucifix safe, Bishop Bertrand?’ I asked, handing back the dead man’s letter. He nodded, gravely.
‘Where do you reveal it, and how often?’ asked the Captain.
‘Only to believers, at our most secret gatherings,’ said the bishop. ‘Although I have shown it twice up in the mountains by the light of day, where all the folks are believers, more or less. It has great, great power. All who see it are bound to our cause like iron to a lodestone … but it does not bring joy. The people weep and quail before it and I must confess that it fills me with something of an unnatural dread. But so it should. It is the record of a man’s suffering, almost as if Death himself were giving a sermon. No better proof could there be of Rome’s lies, but I might wish that would bring joy instead of fear.’
‘I would advise you to bring it to the fortress as soon as you can,’ said the Captain. ‘And yourself along with it, Bertrand. These fields will be full of wolves in a few weeks, and the flock must not be out when they come.’
‘So be it. I will come after the harvest,’ said the bishop.
We stayed a while longer, and I listened while Bishop Bertrand told the Captain of his work and the converts he was still making, and how the people were torn between their love of the truth and their fear of Rome. There was fear everywhere, he said, and some believed that the end was coming for the Good Christians. I wondered if their crucifix cheered them or made them more frightened. The Mandylion was not a cheerful portent, I thought to myself. It was spreading more than rumours: ripples of its dreadful attraction were fanning out, catching the Inquisitors at Avignon and the wretched heretic in Royan – and poor Stevin, too. And the avarice in the faces of Bishop Ranulph and all those royal cousins: Louis, Richard and Queen Isabella. It had power, all right. And now an embattled faith was making its last stand around it. But Bishop Bertrand was a good man, and his belief was as pure and true as anything in this world. Would that be enough to save him, though? As we made our way back through the market square I pondered that question. Despite what we are all taught from the moment we draw breath, is the truth enough to save any man? I found no answer within me, and outside there was nothing but the hissing of geese in the butchers’ pens.
Chapter Eighteen
We came to Montségur on a drab afternoon at the end of Sep
tember. The top of the crag, which rises like a vast, corroded tusk from the valley of the Lasset river, was hung with a grey gauze of cloud. I could not see the castle at all, and it was with a stomach full of misgivings that I said goodbye to my horse in the village that clings to the crag’s skirt and set off beside Captain de Montalhac to climb the path that led, almost sheer in places, up to the gate.
Montségur was not a large place, for there is very little room on top of the crag, or pog as they call it in those parts, and the castle was fitted to the summit like a helmet of cut stone. We reached the gate after a long, lung-tearing slog up through three curtain walls that ran across the steep face of the pog. Beyond the castle, the mountain top formed a sharp ridge that sloped away gently to the north-east before ending in a sheer cliff, and at the brink of that precipice stood the castle’s barbican, the Roc de la Tour. And cliffs fell away from the ridge in every other direction. If we had just come up the easy way, it did not seem to me as if the Good Christians were in much danger from their enemies, no matter how zealous they might be. It was bleak and harsh, and seemed as high and remote as the heaven of some bitter faith. The mist was sliding across the arrow-slits as we walked inside.
There was an open space between the towering walls, and it was crowded with people, all busy doing what people do on a September evening: starting the cooking fires, which smouldered drably; gossiping, mending clothes, scolding children who in turn ran about, chasing their little brothers and sisters. It was not at all what I had expected, and not what the dour welcome of the mist-beaded gate had promised. The Captain was known here, for he was greeted from all sides, and he waved all about him with a great smile on his face. We did not linger, though, and made our way across the courtyard to the keep. This was a stark though well-built tower, still new-looking, for at that time the castle was not even forty years old. We were welcomed inside, and without any ceremony a guard showed us into the solar.
The seigneur was not at home, and instead we were greeted by Pierre-Roger de Mirepoix. This was the man who had led the attack on the inquisitors at Avignonet. He was quite short, but lean and quick in his movements. He had coal-black hair cut surprisingly in the latest fashion, and his jaws were deeply shadowed with stubble. He had high, jutting cheekbones, a nose canted slightly to the left, and dark eyes that flicked from here to there as he spoke, as a hunter’s eyes do as he walks through his woods. It seemed the Captain knew him, for they greeted each other cordially, although there was caution behind their words. The seigneur of Montségur, Raymond de Perella – who I discovered was Pierre-Roger’s father-in-law – had been summoned to Foix on business that he did not impart to us, but which seemed to be of grave importance.
But we were welcomed, and given a room that we found already occupied by three perfecti who greeted us with much joy, although we were making their already cramped living quarters even more cosy. They fell to talking with the Captain, for they were hungry for news of the world outside, and because I did not want to see their gentle, eager faces fall when he told it to them, I went out to look for Gilles.
But I did not find him in the castle, although I searched until darkness had come – and up here in the mist it fell like a headsman’s axe. Gilles and I had not seen each other for more than a year, and I had begun to miss my old friend badly. So I made my way through the folk out in the courtyard, still cheerful despite the damp which had grown cuttingly chill now that the sun had gone, and asked if anyone had seen him. Of course they had! Brother Gilles was here – not here, I was made to understand, but here. And the plump woman who had spoken pointed up and over the walls.
‘Oh, Lord!’ I exclaimed, assuming that he had died and been buried somewhere beyond the castle. But I was wrong, and the woman seemed to find it quite hilarious. Apparently there was a village outside the castle, though where I could not imagine, for I had seen nothing but a sheer drop. No, no, said the woman. There was just enough land for folk to cling to. It was where the perfecti lived, and those who wished to learn from them. And there were more folk coming up every day, for something must be going on down in the land of poor Count Raymond, but then, wasn’t there always something? There was, there was, I agreed: always something. I asked her for directions, but she shook her head and wagged a plump finger at me. No man in his right mind would venture along that edge after dark, and in such a thick night as this … So I bid her farewell, foraged up a little dinner, for the Captain was nowhere to be found, and curled up in the corner of our room. The three perfecti were still deep in some quiet debate, and a mother and her young daughter had taken up the floor in the opposite corner. The girl was sobbing uncontrollably and taking in great shuddering breaths, but I hid my frown from the mother, who looked to be exhausted, and by and by the child let herself be comforted and fell silent. The gentle whispering of the perfecti soon had me drowsing, and when I opened my eyes again it was morning.
The Captain was not there, though it was barely past dawn, and the air was sharp. I lay on the straw for a minute, watching the steam of my breath gather and fade, then I roused myself. Our room had grown much fuller while I had slumbered. The other sleepers were bundled up or crouching in various stages of awakening, and the young girl who had been so upset last night sat giggling and prodding her mother, who seemed to be keeping her patience with difficulty. I wiggled my fingers at the girl – who hid beneath her mother’s dress – stretched, and got up.
Outside, the cooking fires were lit. There were bread ovens somewhere, for the smell of hot bread curled like a vein of gold through the frosty air. ‘Master Petroc!’ It was the woman from last night, beckoning me over. She had a fat slice of fresh bread for me, with sweet butter melting into it, and a cup of milk warm and frothy from the goat. As I was chewing, she told me how to reach the dwellings beyond the walls, and it did not seem as impossible a feat as it had last night, for the sky was as clear as a diamond and the castle’s pall of mist had gone with the night. Behind me, high up on the eastern wall, a woman began to sing. It was a song to the rising sun, and to a lover – and perhaps they were one and the same. She stood in an embrasure, outlined against the pale gold luminance, a small figure made at the same time more and less substantial by the aura of light that surrounded her. She could have been a seraph, a being of pure radiance, except that her voice was achingly human. It was high and clear, with a crack, a flaw that ran through it like a seam of despair that hollowed out the beauty of the words.
Sweet friend, the morning star
Has risen in the east,
And all the greenwood birds
Fill the air with song
For the dawn is coming.
Sweet friend, turn from the window.
The stars fade from the sky:
Soon the watcher on the walls
Will sight his prize,
For the dawn is coming.
Sweet friend, the flowers open
And await the sun,
But love’s pale rose, that blooms by night
The sun must kill,
And the dawn is coming.
I shivered. There was something final in the beauty of that voice. It was implacable, not quite of this earth, as if the singer had seen beyond the vainglory of the world and found a merciless purity there.
‘That’s Iselda,’ said the woman who had given me breakfast. ‘Doesn’t she sing lovely?’
‘She does,’ I said. ‘She surely does. Does she live here?’
‘She sings here, so she must live here, my darling. Lucky for us! She’s sweeter than nightingales.’
The song had reached its end, and when I looked up at the wall the singer was gone. But her voice followed me through the courtyard. Outside the gate I paused, gazing over at the mountains across the valley in their clothing of autumn. The river below was a trickle of mercury, and the terraces that scored the lower slopes looked like ripples in sand. Snow had already bleached the teeth of the high peaks. Up there, I thought suddenly, the wind would sound like Iseld
a’s voice: glorious, without pity.
I had thought it would be an easy matter to find Gilles, but I was mistaken. There was a path, well-worn and wide enough for two men to walk abreast, that led away from the gate and vanished around the curve of the wall. At first it was easy work to follow, but soon the looming wall on one side and the sheer drop on the other began to prey upon my mind. There were the first huts of the perfecti just ahead of me, and behind me, I knew, the sun-drowsed guard was only a few paces away. So by keeping my eyes on the dusty pathway and planting one foot before the other like a rope-walker I managed to stifle my sense that I had stumbled out of the world, but the flash of sun on black wings made me start and I saw a flock of choughs wheeling below me in the great emptiness of the air. Straight away my legs wobbled and for a moment I felt as if the birds were urging me to step into the abyss. The wall, implacable, seemed to be leaning over me, edging me off the path. Then I heard the sound of a woman’s laugh and caught the scent of cooking, and with a grunt of effort I forced myself to stumble on and another few agonising steps brought me to the village of the hermits.
I had heard it called that, the hermit village, but what manner of hermit seeks the company of other folk, let alone that of other hermits? Perhaps I had expected a silent place, but it was not silent here, this confusion of huts that hung like a colony of those wheeling, red-legged choughs who still turned and called in the air below. There was a gentle hum of discourse, the ring of spoons in iron pots, the thud of mallet upon stake as someone anchored his home a little more securely to the clifftop. There was a stout wooden palisade across my path, but the gate was open and unguarded. As soon as I was safe amongst the huts I looked about me. An old woman in a shabby dark robe was seated on the ground outside her hut, which perched at the very brink of the drop. She was staring out at the birds, but hearing me approach she turned her head and nodded a greeting. Her hair was long and dirty white but her face was serene, almost young, until she smiled and revealed toothless gums. I waved, and she waved back as if I were her favourite grandson, and turned her head again to the choughs. I walked on, following the path through a thickening copse of huts and shelters. Some of these were older and quite well-built, with foundations of cut stone that might have come from the wall of an older fortress. Some were little more than piles of staves and faggots thatched with furze, nestled into scraped-out hollows in the stony ground. Some were bigger than others, in that a small man could perhaps stand up and turn about, arms outstretched, without knocking down the walls. Here and there the ground was terraced and level, but most of the dwellings around me were clinging to the bare rock like the houses of mud-daubing wasps.
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