The Treasure of Montsegur

by Sophy Burnham

  “Put it on,” cried the girls in exasperation, and someone reached over, laughing, and crowned her with the twining green leaves.

  Jeanne felt numb. Her mind was still grappling with the scene. Because Rogert, who only two nights earlier had taken her into the bushes to touch his most private, rearing parts, had never—not for a moment—so much as glanced her way, but had gazed with his black-lashed, indolent eyes at the girl he’d crowned. Then he’d turned his horse and galloped off the field.

  Everyone thought it very pretty.

  “Jeanne.”

  “Don’t speak to me!” She backed away, her rage exploding not at Rogert but at her friend.

  “Wait, Jeanne,” urged Baiona, willing her to withhold condemnation.

  By custom Baiona should wear the victor’s wreath all evening, but as soon as she left the stands, she whipped it off and dropped it on the ground. It lay between the two girls now, a symbol of their rift. Jeanne snatched it up and thrust it in her hands.

  “Your wreath!” she spat. And ran toward the castle, as far from Baiona, from her shame, as she could get. Ran across the grass. Ran through the graceful archway to turn and press her hot face against the cool gray stones of the wall, scraping her fingers on the stones, hurting her hands. Finally she wandered to the dinner hall, distracted and distraught. She spoke when spoken to, polite phrases here and there, but she would have nothing to do with Baiona.

  That night, when the festivities ended, Baiona came into their bedroom. Jeanne sat perched, legs dangling, on the high bed, waiting. They stared at each other. Neither spoke. Baiona tossed the wreath on the floor with a contemptuous flick of her wrist. Jeanne leapt on her, hitting, scratching, kicking, pulling her hair. They fought silently, their blows punctuated only by muted grunts, until Jeanne bit Baiona’s ear. At her scream of pain several older women ran in.

  “Pull her off!”

  “Separate them!”

  “Stop!”

  “Demon-child!”

  A slap to Jeanne’s face snapped her head sharply and sent her reeling backward. She looked up, dazed at the realization that it had been Giulietta’s hand. This second betrayal ran so deep she hardly heard the other voices, outraged cries.

  “How dare you!”

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “The Devil’s own brood.”

  Jeanne picked herself up, fighting back tears of confusion, anger, hate, and hurt.

  The next day the Lady Esclarmonde came to the room where Jeanne lay on her bed. Doing nothing. Staring dry-eyed at the ceiling. Hair unbrushed. Clothing awry. Esclarmonde paused at the door. Under her arm she clutched her spindle. In her hands she held a roll of soggy blue cloth.

  “Get up,” she said harshly. Jeanne came slowly to her feet.

  “The washerwomen were down by the river this morning and found Baiona’s dress, the one she wore at the joust.” Esclarmonde tossed it at Jeanne’s feet. Jeanne looked away.

  “The woman said that she had walked downstream to relieve herself when she saw a bit of blue fabric caught in the water. She had to wade out knee-deep, she said, to reach the garment, and when she pulled on it, it came up from under a rock. Torn. Bleached out. She brought it to me.”

  Still Jeanne said nothing. Her dark eyes were cold with hurt, her face pinched.

  “Jeanne, what do you know of this?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Jeanne, don’t lie.” Angrily, the older woman pinched her tender inner arm between her strong flat thumb and spinning fingers, bringing tears to Jeanne’s eyes.

  “You did this, didn’t you? Baiona is in tears at what happened to her favorite dress. Jeanne, why did you steal and destroy her dress?”

  “Why do you ask me?” Jeanne demanded, her voice coming out too loud. “What do I have to do with Baiona? We’re not friends.”

  “Then you’re a fool,” said Esclarmonde. “Why are you so jealous? Ugly, spiteful child. No one sensible lets anger interfere with their good sense. Have I taught you nothing? Baiona is your friend. She loves you.”

  “She loves me,” Jeanne repeated icily.

  Esclarmonde searched the girl’s eyes. “You know nothing about love,” she said finally. “I’ve failed. I don’t expect you to love your enemy yet, but not to love your friend?”

  “My friend.” The words were a mere whisper.

  Esclarmonde regarded her, mouth pinched. “So what are we to do with you? Are you imp-driven, as they say? A Devil-child? Possessed?” She sat in one of the carved wooden chairs with curving arms and legs and stared impassively at Jeanne.

  For several minutes she sat in silence, her lips moving in quiet prayer. Suddenly, her decision made, she rose from her seat and addressed Jeanne firmly.

  “Come. You’re going away.”

  “What do you mean?” Jeanne felt a rising panic.

  “Perhaps it’s true, as those who saw your rage last night say, that a demon has possessed you. If so, you’ll need the care of someone better trained than I. Bishop Guilhabert de Castres will rid you of it.”

  Jeanne stared out the window, chin quivering. Was she really a child of the Devil? She didn’t want to be. She wanted to be lovable and loved.

  “He is the finest of Good Christians. He lives at Montségur. Pack your clothes straightaway. We’ll depart in an hour. Before you go, you are to leave your silver dress with all its fine embroidery for Baiona. Put it on the bed, and I’ll see that she gets it. You’ll need no festival clothing where you’re going. Now hurry. We have a long way to go.”

  “Just like that?” Jeanne was dumbstruck. She and Baiona had had a fight, nothing more.

  “Just like that.”

  “How long will I be gone?”

  “As long as it takes you to learn your lesson. Now pack your clothes. We leave before noon.”

  Jeanne turned on her, furious. “Why send me away? Why not Baiona? What have I done wrong?”

  But Esclarmonde merely drew herself up to her full height. Her lips, tight pressed, formed disapproving tendrils along the upper lip. She stared Jeanne to silence by her look. When it was clear from Jeanne’s despairing look that the outburst was over, Esclarmonde said, “From now on, your silver dress belongs to Baiona. I have nothing more to say.”

  In less than half an hour Jeanne had packed her belongings. She descended gloomily to the courtyard. There she saw two men gathering provisions in panniers and packing weapons for protection. Esclarmonde and her socia, Ealaine, were there as well, counting the supplies. Jeanne looked defiantly about.

  “We’re going to walk?” she exclaimed.

  “Oh, Jeanne.” Esclarmonde looked as if she’d been slapped. “I’ve taught you nothing, nothing.” Tears spilled from her aged eyes. The eyes of a turtle, each in a wrinkled shell. “After all these years you’d still ask me to burden an animal with carrying me.”

  Jeanne felt a stab of remorse. Why did she say such things?

  “You can walk like the rest of us, on the feet God gave you,” said Ealaine stiffly. “You’re strong enough to walk.”

  “I’ve brought my spindle.” Jeanne held it up in apology, but the two women had turned back to their baskets.

  “Jeanne! Wait!” It was Baiona, crossing the courtyard at a run.

  “What?” she demanded, unwilling to unbend without an apology.

  “Don’t look at me like that, Jeanne,” she pleaded. “I didn’t want all this. I didn’t even want the wreath. Talk to me.”

  “I can’t. I can’t talk to you.”

  “Don’t leave like this.” Baiona stepped forward. “I don’t want your dress.” She swept at the strands of fine hair that the wind whipped round her face. “Oh, Jeanne.”

  “Leave her be.” Esclarmonde intervened, addressing Baiona. “Someday she’ll understand what she’s done; it has nothing to do with you. Now go back in.”

  She nodded to the two men. “Are we ready?” At her signal the group set off.

  Esclarmonde and Ealaine may hav
e been old, but they set a steady pace, walking side by side before the men and murmuring their prayers. Jeanne walked behind. After an hour she pulled up beside the two women.

  “Esclarmonde?”

  “Be quiet,” said the older woman firmly. “This is a time for you to rest in silence. And to pray.” Such was her displeasure.

  Jeanne tried again. “How far is it to Montségur?”

  “When we reach Lavelanet, we shall talk. Until then, be still and listen to the guidance of your heart.”

  Jeanne dropped back a pace, irritated at how Esclarmonde loved to quote the Book of Isaiah: Be still and know that I am God. But Esclarmonde often changed the passage to reinforce her constant, boring asseveration that God is found in silence, stillness, and prayer. Her girls heard over and over (it made Jeanne want to shriek) that God is found inside, in their own meditations, and that whatever the true heart told them, that is the voice of God.

  At the moment Jeanne’s true heart told her she’d been betrayed. She felt sorry for herself. She wondered if anger, hurt, and vengeance also formed the speech of God.

  NINE

  This morning, as I’m gathering my things together getting ready to hobble out and collect my herbs and see where God wants to put me today, the mistress of the house comes out. She wears a white wimple. She is a young woman, still in her prime. I’ve seen her with her two fine children, a boy and a younger girl, who run and play around her skirts, but today she is alone, looking at the sky. She spies me in my hidey-hole beside the stable and starts toward me, then changes her mind and ducks back into the house.

  I have been here now for twice the ringing of the Sunday bells. Perhaps she’s going to make me leave. I hurry to push out to the road before she brings bad news, but before I manage more than two steps she’s back.

  “Good morning, Mistress.”

  I am startled. I look up and down the street to see whom she is speaking to, but here she is crossing the stableyard toward me, skirts lifted, dainty feet picking through the mud. She laughs good-naturedly at my confusion.

  “It’s you I’m speaking to, Na Jeanne.” Her eyes flicker like insects over my clothes and face. My fingernails are black with dirt. They never used to be dirty. When I was a lady.

  She has dark eyes. She has a broad face and a fine plump body and two rounded hills for her breasts, half-hidden under her laces, a pretty, plump dove to make her husband proud of her, but then I see the bowl she’s carrying. My mouth begins to water, but I feel a disquiet running through me. I can’t put my finger on it. I want to rush away.

  Then I see the sneaky servant-boy peering out from the doorway of the house, and I know the source of my anxiety.

  I curtsey politely. I am no longer a noblewoman but a poor beggar-beast, a wandering ewe; and I take my proper place, as I was taught. And anyway, who am I to put on airs?

  “I’ve brought you a warm soup,” she says. “Eat.”

  She holds out the wooden bowl and spoon, and a husky smell rises to my nostrils. My stomach twists in delight.

  “It’s a good bean soup,” she says, as I take it in my surprised, awed hands. “A thick broth, made with beef.”

  I bow in prayer, a silent Thank you, God, and take the offered bowl.

  “Mistress,” I say, “this charity shall be seen by God. Blessings on the provider.” The trace of a whine in my voice, as if beggar-born, though on reflection, I’ve had time to learn. We’re all beggars in the end, beggars of God and fate.

  She steps inside my little lean-to, out of the stable mud, although short as she is she has to duck her head to avoid the beam. She looks around, hands folded on her stomach. I think that she’s enceinte again, curling her fingers over the secret babe that’s right now hiding in her womb. Her eyes dart about my snug little nook, taking in the clean straw for my bed, the stones that I have gathered for a hearth outside. I get nervous with her staring and put down the wooden bowl and begin to rummage in my sack among my things, wishing she would go away. Suddenly she does not look as pretty to me or as welcoming.

  “I am careful with the fire. It’s not dangerous.” I hear the words tumble from my lips too fast. “I placed the stones outside, as you can see, out in the yard, lest a spark fly out. I watch it carefully. I don’t wish to disturb.”

  “No, no,” she answers quickly. “You disturb nothing. Here, though. Sit. Eat.”

  She picks up the soup that I have not touched and hands the bowl to me a second time. “Eat.”

  I crouch down and take a spoonful. The soup is good, and I feel my belly twist in appreciation; my hunger is a monster sleeping in its cave, and it’s just been wakened with a bone. So I send another wordless prayer to my Lord, to transform the flesh that I’m eating into the natural, living food of God, suitable in His eyes. My Lord could do that, make the unclean pure, as Christ turned water into wine, and I wish He would do so with me, forgive my faults, make me a vessel of pure love. Slowly I sip the soup.

  The mistress remains close by. Clearly she has something on her mind.

  “It’s good.” The soup, I mean.

  “Where are you from, Na Jeanne?” she asks boldly, smiling down on me. “You’re not from here.”

  “Ah, no,” I say. Noncommittal, though I begin to feel the confusion rising in my brain. A loud singing. A singing cloud. The Inquisitors wanted to know that too: Sieur Anselmo and his friend. “Where are you from?” they asked, two Dominicans in their terrifying black and white. Black panthers in disguise. And I, stumbling by, pretending to be mute, not knowing if I wanted them to take and put me to the stake—get it over with—or if I wanted to escape. Edging away from them. “Where are you from?” they had asked, as she did now, this pretty, buxom matron with hot soup. And later the questioning about my Voices and where I’ve been.

  “You say you have seen God,” the Inquisitors challenged me. “How do you know it is not your imagination?”

  “It is my imagination,” I replied.

  I saw Sieur Anselmo’s face go black.

  “Well, which is it?” he thundered. “God or your imagination?”

  I was so frightened. I tried to explain: “That’s one of the ways God speaks to me,” I whispered, wishing I had more courage, wishing I had no fear. I dropped a curtsey and looked over my shoulder for help.

  In my imagination, in my sorrow, in my longing, in my fear. And what’s oddest of all, I forgot the most important one: in my joy! I wanted to shout. “In my singing! In my happiness comes God.” They let me go, I don’t know why. They set me free to wander off again.

  “If not from here, then where?” Mistress Flavia snaps me back to the present. “You have no family?”

  “I had a family once,” I answer. “But no, they are dead now, scattered.”

  “So many have been killed in the wars,” she says, urging me to further confidences.

  “May their souls rest in peace.” I know the responses I’m supposed to make.

  “Are you from the Languedoc originally? I can’t place your accent. You speak like one of the aristocracy.”

  A chill goes through me. To be alone, without family, without the protection of friends or place, is dangerous. But to speak like the aristocracy is to be marked. The boy is still watching furtively from the house.

  By now I have finished all but a couple of bites of the soup, and I rise stiffly.

  “I am no one, Mistress Flavia. I am the lowliest beggar-woman on this earth. I am sorry if I inconvenience you,” I continue, rushing on, annoyed by the whine that I cannot leave out of my voice. “I do not mean to be a burden. I shall leave tonight. I have spun your wool, Mistress Flavia. It is here, on this nail.”

  “No, no,” she says hurriedly, but I see she takes the yarn, and she is looking at my work with interest. She shall not find a flaw. “That’s not what I meant at all. Only that I’m curious. You know how women are. I see you here, so neat and tidy in your dress, so well spoken. It’s easy to see you weren’t always like this. You stand upright. Yo
u have dignity—the way your fingers smooth your dress. You have a strange, wild beauty, and I wonder who you are, that’s all. Also—” she stops. “People see you collecting herbs in the meadows.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “Only tell me what country you’re from.”

  “Born in Béziers,” I say. That’s safe enough.

  “They say you were at Montségur.”

  “Who says?”

  “A peddler at the fair last week told Na Rixende that he’d seen you there.”

  “Many people have been at Montségur,” I say. “And many have never been there and pretend they have. They’ve torn it down now, every stone, and scattered the foundations. Nothing remains of Montségur. Hotbed of heretics.” I cross myself quickly. After that I put the bowl back in her hands, curtseying my thanks. “Here is your bowl, and thank you, ma’am.”

  She doesn’t take the hint. “They say you have healing powers.” Again her eyes flicker round the humble shelter. Her mouth turns up in a little smile, and she takes my arm intimately.

  “Na Jeanne,” she says, once again giving me a title of courtesy. She lowers her head and whispers, “Tell me who you are. Ever since you came…such strange things. Look how our garden grows, the hollyhocks a foot taller than those in the neighbor’s yard, and the herbs around our house, everything springing up green and lush. They say you have magic. Look at the donkey. He’s so old you can see every bone in his back sticking up like spikes. But the stableboy says that he doesn’t limp the way he used to. The donkey could hardly take a step a week ago, and now he’s gaining weight. He holds up his head. It’s clear that his knees don’t hurt as much.”

  I say nothing. She looks at me. The silence drawing out.

  “Yesterday my little boy, the one who’s just returned—”

  She watches me as she talks, but I’m suddenly intently absorbed in rummaging in my sack.

  “Guiscard is five years old,” she continues. “Yesterday he fell down while playing with the bigger boys.” My heart is pounding. I know what she’s going to say. “His head was bleeding. The skin was torn off the palm of his hand, the left hand. He was crying. He says you came up to him in the road.”