The Treasure of Montsegur

by Sophy Burnham

  “Mistress Flavia sends you this,” he says with a black look, laying down his tray. Then with his free hand he crosses himself quickly against my witchery. I see him make the Devil’s fork against the Evil One.

  “What is it?” I lift the white linen napkin.

  Now tell me that the angels don’t take care of me! The mistress of this place has sent me a pot of hot water and a little jug of wine, and I can mix the two and stretch the wine out all the afternoon. Blessings poured on me!

  “But why?” I look up at the boy, ready to like him for having brought me something nice. But he glares down at me, lip curled.

  “She’s celebrating the return of her little son,” he says.

  “Her son?”

  “Aged five. He’s been visiting her sister and their mum, and now that he’s come home she says everyone in the household must have wine, and that includes the destitute old beggar-woman in the shed.”

  “Me?”

  Me, destitute?

  “I said you were a witch,” he whispered, “and should be stoned. Or else a heretic, and burnt.”

  “Watch your tongue.” We glare at each other, but I am first to lower my eyes.

  “She’s a good woman to think of me. Tell her I shall work for her,” I say, “if she gives me wool for spinning and the loan of a spindle. I am no beggar. I can sew and spin. I can mend for her. I’ll work for my food and lodging.”

  He turns away. He won’t take back my message, I know. And I’m sorry.

  “Tell her thank you.” I pour the wine into my bowl and mix it with a little water. He watches sharp-eyed. Then I hand him back the napkin and the jug. I don’t want him watching me drink, ruining my taste of warmth. “Tell her I shall pray to our Lord Jesus Christ for her, and her husband, and her son. Tell her that this kindness shall be remembered in heaven above.”

  “She’ll kick you out.” He leans down in my face. I cover the wine with one hand. I don’t want his spit in it. I don’t want him kicking it over with his foot. But he picks up the tray and jug, leaving me the pot of hot water, and he dashes out into the rain, running through the raindrops. Poor boy. Trying to keep his black velvet from getting muddy and wet. It’s a sad thing, that he has to wait on me, and suddenly I feel pity for him.

  The mistress is a beautiful woman, always neat, her headdress clean. I’m glad I thought to ask for work. Na Jeanne, she calls me formally, as if I were still the chatelaine of my husband’s lands. She has a pretty smile. Another woman would have turned me out, my being the reminder of what all else she has to give. The poor are not beloved anywhere.

  But I am not poor, as I’d tell her. I am blessed above all women, because I have shelter, and not just anyplace either, but in a stable. I live in this crack between the shed and the stable wall, and who could ask for more? Wasn’t our Lord born in a stable and laid out in a manger? I am graced, perhaps, to live the end of my days according to His birth.

  So I hum to myself and drink the wine and listen to the rain drip into the courtyard there, splashing on the stones. Once I lived in the palace at Pamiers, and sometimes in the one at Foix; and once I thought a young man’s love was the treasure of the world.

  SIX

  Was it God’s will or hers that made things happen?

  Rogert was well built, with his broad shoulders and his narrow hips. His dark hair fell over lazy black eyes. She watched him under her lashes when he served the wine at dinner, noted the way he rested his weight on one hip. She watched him during military exercises, when the young men were taught the code of arms. And sometimes, as if a teasing universe were testing her, she would come around a corner unaware and there he’d be, leaning olive-skinned against a wall, perhaps, as he chatted with his friends, or carrying armor for his lord, so that even though in her head she wanted freedom from him, her heart would give a sudden leap, her knees go weak. Eyes down, she would hurry past.

  Once he was coming off the training field at Foix with a gang of boys, all of them jostling, wrestling one another, trying to throw each other down. Jeanne was standing at the stable gate, and at their approach her feet seemed glued to the ground, unable to move. They came closer. A pulse pounded in her throat. She thought she might actually faint: it was as if he gave off a magical scent, or a bow-wave of heat. She had to support herself with one hand on the wall. The boys took up all the road when they walked, and as they passed, Rogert put one arm around her waist.

  “Here’s Jeanne,” he said. “And how’s my little Jeanne?”

  She was stunned. For a moment she could do nothing, aware only of his breath on her face and his hand on her waist, and then she twisted away.

  “I’m neither yours nor little,” she answered. “If you—”

  But he’d already passed on with a laugh, leaving her red-faced and for some reason ashamed. She picked up her skirts and ran across the courtyard and through the stone arch, legs pounding down the road that bordered the training field. Running, running, though she didn’t know why or where. She wanted to feel her body moving and the breath searing her lungs. She ran all the way to the river and threw herself down on the grass. Then she burst into angry tears, because she’d dropped into a nest of stinging nettles and it seemed the final straw, though whether her tears rose up for twisting away or for wanting his arm around her or for the pain of nettles she could not say. She soaked her legs in the soothing river and thought of him.

  That night and for many nights afterward she dreamed about his arm around her waist, his body pressed against hers. She snuggled up to Baiona in the dark—Baiona, friend of her childhood, her other heart. As children they had eaten and played and slept together. If separated for a few hours, they would fly into each other’s arms as if they’d been apart for weeks.

  “Baiona!”

  “Oh, I love you, Jeanne!”

  One fair, one dark, they lay in their shared bed and breathed each other’s breath from sleepy lips, their legs entangled and arms entwined or thrown casually over the other’s back.

  “Baiona, are you awake?” Jeanne whispered this night.

  “Hmm.”

  “I have something to tell you.”

  “What?”

  “No, I’ve changed my mind.”

  Baiona raised herself on one elbow, peering in the darkness into the white moon of her friend’s face. “We don’t have secrets,” she said solemnly. “Telling me something is like telling it to yourself, and telling you something is like telling another half of myself. We’re the same person, you and I.”

  “I’m ashamed,” Jeanne murmured.

  “Ashamed of what?”

  “Bend down.” She could feel Baiona’s soft hair tickling her cheek. “I like…Rogert,” she whispered into her friend’s waiting ear.

  There was silence. Baiona pulled back.

  “Baiona?”

  “No. I was thinking about it. How does he feel?” she asked cautiously.

  “I don’t know, I’m miserable. I can’t tell. Do you think he likes me?”

  There was a pause before she answered with impatience. “How would I know?”

  Then: “I don’t like Rogert.”

  “Oh.” For a moment Jeanne was stunned. She wanted to ask her, why—why didn’t she like him? But lying there in bed she thought, What difference would the answer make? Maybe Baiona was jealous, or afraid she’d lose her best friend. Maybe she didn’t know Rogert. There were a hundred reasons why one person liked or disliked another. Maybe Jeanne didn’t want to know.

  “Giulietta says I must put myself in his way and see how he behaves,” said Jeanne. She looked over at Baiona, lying on her back and staring at the dark. “What do you think?”

  “I don’t think anything,” said Baiona. “Do it, I guess.”

  “What do you mean? How?”

  “Take her advice. Perhaps he wants your heart.” She turned her back to Jeanne. “I have to sleep.”

  “Tell me that he likes me,” Jeanne urged, innocent as a mourning dove, but Baion
a had already gone to sleep. Jeanne ducked deep into the covers, her head bursting with the idea that Rogert might love her, might want her heart. The words were like a trouvère’s song: “He wants your heart.” In a single moment Jeanne felt that she’d changed from girl to woman, the shift so subtle that it happened in the time it took to turn from her left side, facing Baiona, over to her right. She lay with her back pressed against that of her closest friend and wondered if Baiona knew. One half-turn of her body in the bed, and she had become a woman. One who wanted a man.

  But it wasn’t so easy by the light of day. Jeanne compared her own stocky body to Baiona’s lovely rounded one. Baiona could no more keep boys from her than the apple blossoms can repel the bees. She admitted their attentions—mildly. Nonetheless, she seemed indifferent, preferring to paint or sew.

  Jeanne pined. She snapped at the others. She started looking at her image every chance she got in the one precious glass in the women’s rooms. She dropped hints about a new dress. She asked Giulietta to help refashion an old cloak and show her how to fix her hair. She didn’t say what any of these things were for, but Giulietta knew. She would have known even if Jeanne hadn’t shared her secret some weeks earlier. In fact, the entire palace knew, so fast does gossip spread—and perhaps even Rogert himself had been apprised of it. Giulietta teased her, but she also gave advice, and Jeanne listened, thinking that when she had a daughter of her own she would pass such precious information on to her: the wisdom of women.

  “Before you enter a room, pause, lift your chin, and say to yourself, ‘I am the most beautiful woman here.’ And only then go in.”

  “Yes.”

  “When you see Rogert, lift up your heart and send him a wave of light, a wave of love.”

  “How?”

  “You’ll know how. He’ll feel it. He won’t know what he feels, but he’ll respond.”

  “What else?” Jeanne prompted.

  “Sometimes—but not too often—look right into his eyes.”

  “Is that all?”

  “That’s a lot!” said Giulietta, laughing. “And smile. Keep a happy expression on your face. No one wants to be with someone glum.”

  She wanted to tell Baiona about her love, but whenever she tried, Baiona bent her head over her embroidery and did not respond. Once, with a tense, impatient laugh, she gathered up her sewing: “Jeanne, I don’t want to hear about it.” She left the room.

  Jeanne looked after her, astonished and angry. She decided Baiona was jealous. Baiona preferred no suitor, and no one was planning a marriage for her. Jeanne’s love cut a path between the girls.

  “This crush,” Baiona called it, with a disdainful toss of her head. “It’s not real love.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He’s not worthy of you, Jeanne. Stay away.”

  “Why? What’s wrong? Why do you hate to talk about him?”

  But Baiona would only shrug.

  One night at dinner as he poured the wine, Rogert’s shoulder pressed Jeanne’s arm, leaning in on her. She looked up. His head was so close that his lips almost touched hers. Instantly he pulled away, leaving her with a heart beating so fast that she thought everyone nearby must hear it. She sipped her wine, hands trembling.

  That evening, when the singing was over and the storytelling about to begin, Rogert worked himself to her side.

  “Anybody want a walk?” he said idly, to no one in particular, and then as if only just noticing her: “Come walk outside?” He didn’t use her name.

  They slipped away, as happy, she thought, as two puppies, bounding under the starry sky. The bushes in the garden loomed black. The air felt sweet. Rogert put one arm around her and drew her toward the maze. She hesitated, pulled back, not quite a woman yet.

  “Come here,” he whispered. “I want to show you something.”

  “What?”

  “Curiosity killed the cat.”

  “Satisfaction brought it back,” she said, laughing silently, keeping her voice low lest others hear. “Tell me.”

  “Do you want to be satisfied, Jeanne?” he asked. “Little Jeanne of Béziers.”

  “I’m not so little.”

  Step by cautious step, he led her into the fragrant boxwood maze, secret and dark. The brush stood higher than their heads. Jeanne felt uneasy, but also excited. The sour scent of the boxbushes mingled with the rich scent of Rogert. He kissed her on the lips. She could feel his body swelling against hers, and she leaned in to meet him. He pulled her deeper into the shadows. In the faint starlight she could not make out his expression.

  “We shouldn’t be here,” she murmured.

  “Shh. Shh. I want to show you something. Something you will like.” With one hand he fumbled with his clothing. With the other he took her hand.

  “Here.” He slid her hand downward between his legs. She gasped at the touch of his skin. She had not touched a man there before. The skin was smooth and soft. So delicate. Rogert groaned under her fingers, guiding her hand. She held her breath. She didn’t know whether she wanted this or not. Fear already sent her running home—to safety indoors—while excitement held her here. And Rogert. He gripped her hand in his, stroking himself up and down as he grew larger under her fingers. Jeanne knew about sex. They were not fools, the children, but she could hardly breathe. The frantic thought came, wondering how that could fit inside a girl, inside of her. Now he was nuzzling her neck, and he released her hand, which knew its task now, in order to free his own two hands to roam her flanks, her breasts. She was frightened. He pressed his pelvis against hers. She liked it and at the same time wanted no part of this. Surely it was wrong. What if someone saw? She froze.

  “Don’t stop,” he said. To reinforce the words, his hand returned to guide her own. And now he groaned again, butting her with his head and pulling up her long skirts roughly, his hands sliding along the bare skin of her thigh. She wanted to push him away. She wanted to press up close. Also she wished that he would speak sweet words, to say that he loved her. She wanted him to talk to her, but then she thought how ungrateful she was, when his actions spoke clearly of his love.

  “Don’t.” She pulled away, holding his wrist.

  “Don’t what?” he whispered, both hands exploring still. He was too strong for her. “Don’t leave me like this,” he said, and pulled her hand back down to the manliness between his legs.

  “Rogert, I—”

  “Jeanne, Jeanne,” he whispered. “Yes, like that. Like that. Don’t you like it?”

  But she couldn’t answer, for his mouth was on hers, his body lurching against hers. His breath was hot in her mouth, and she felt frightened by the quickening movements, the strangled, gasping sounds. He clutched at her once, twice—and suddenly her hand was wet and something was spurting all over her hand, her dress, the grass.

  He held her a moment longer, quivering and almost unsteady on his feet, then pulled away. He wiped himself off with his handkerchief and then looked at her appraisingly, his lazy dark eyes gleaming in the starlight. Then he offered her the handkerchief to clean her hands, but she passed up its dampness and wiped her hands on her dress and on the grass.

  Suddenly everything was different, her earlier elation gone. She wanted to burst into tears. She realized that in all that time, they had never sat or lain upon the grass, but only stood on their square four feet. Rogert was adjusting his clothes with the little jerks men make as they tuck themselves in, and she was left there standing in the dark. Abandoned. She felt dirty.

  “Rogert?” she whispered, her voice weak.

  He laughed quickly, a dark, earthy sound, hugged her in a comradely way, and kissed her. But it was a quick, cool kiss, when what she wanted was simply to be held until her trembling stopped. She felt that something terrible had happened, though she didn’t know what, nor how to ask about it. She had seen into the Devil’s creation, perhaps, for surely she never felt lonelier in her life—and yet she ought to feel proud. For had he not chosen her, the orphan Jeanne Béziers
, for this secret love?—and that made her, she supposed, his lady, though she had never imagined it would be like this.

  “Good girl,” he said, brushing her breasts with the fingertips of both hands. Numbly, she nodded.

  “Go inside,” he whispered, “before you’re missed.” His white teeth flashed in the dim light as he nodded a dismissal.

  So she went, obediently, but more confused than ever—for why, if she were his lady, had he sent her away? She felt bereft. She hurried to her room and undressed quickly. The dress was stained with his spill, and she could smell his maleness on her skin.

  She washed and crept into bed quickly, and when Baiona came up and slid beneath the covers, she pretended to be asleep.

  After that night she didn’t mention Rogert to Baiona again. Was it a sin she had committed? She didn’t want to ask, didn’t want to know. Did God see them in the Garden of Eden? Did the God of Love approve?

  SEVEN

  This morning I awaken to the bells all ringing gaily from the church. I lie on the straw in my cozy nook, happy and content, and bless the rough wood roof above me with its sweet-smelling thatch—a sturdy roof that keeps out most of the rain. I am lucky. On the other side of the wall I hear the donkey in his stall sound off with his braying like a bellows, enough to wake the Devil (if he should ever sleep), while the little flock of black-faced, narrow-nosed sheep bleat and run into one another in the silly way of sheep.

  So I begin my prayers, content.

  Yesterday I found half a loaf of bread. Sometimes someone gives me an onion or a handful of olives or some greens. I’ve gotten thin.

  Sometimes I eat only part of the food. Wait, says the inner voice. I listen, waiting. Last Sunday the mistress sent me a wooden bowl of porridge and some wool to spin, for to my surprise the stableboy delivered my message. I took the food to an old woman in the upper story of a house.

  Here’s how it happened: I had eaten half the porridge when the Knowing came. It always comes suddenly, of its own accord, and when and where I never can predict. Sometimes it appears as a light behind my eyes and a swift lift of the heart—because that’s how God speaks to me, with joy. My heart leaps up and shouts out, Yes! Other times it comes only as a subtle understanding of what I ought to do; and I have learned to obey.