But then I drift asleep, and in sleep our souls twine together with our sweet deep breathing, in union, and all night long we lie together, man and wife.
“He doesn’t sound so fine a man to me,” Jerome had said. But when William entered the room, I came alive; and when he left, the sun died out.
He could be brutal, even cruel; I knew that. Once, after making love, we went to the castle of the Count of Toulouse where William turned his back. He never spoke to me; he acted as if we’d never met, instead of having just risen from our wild bed.
That was nothing, though, compared to his reaction to the babe. I thought he’d be thrilled at the news. Instead, he’d frowned. “Are you sure?” He snapped his fingers nervously.
“But aren’t you pleased?” I asked. “I’m so happy. I’m carrying your child. Perhaps a son.”
He held me absently. “I have things on my mind,” he explained when I pressed him. He added that he’d been called to Foix and from there on to Mirepoix. He would be leaving in the morning—and yes, he’d see Baiona on the trip. But he’d be back in a week or two, and meanwhile I was to take good care of myself.
I pushed my anxieties away. I felt sure he would marry me, now that I was carrying his son. He would divorce Baiona.
He did not return for several weeks. When he did, he said, “I think it’s time you married again.”
I was taken aback. Searching his face, then recovering: “Oh, you mean marry you.”
“Of course not me,” he laughed lightly, as if I’d made a joke. “I’m already married, dear. But we have to find a home for you and my unborn son. I’ve spoken to Roland-Pierre. I saw him recently in Mirepoix and suggested that if he asked for your hand you would give it to him. And he could have a pretty wife—not rich, but not poor either. He likes you well. If you marry quickly, the babe will appear his own.”
I didn’t like it. I argued. I wept.
“Darling, I want you taken care of. Do this for me. I need to know that you’ll be all right, you and my child. You know I would do anything for you. But my hands are tied. All I can do is make provision. I’ve spent time with Roland-Pierre. I like him. He doesn’t know whose child it is. I told him only that I knew you from the Cause and that I wished you well. He’s a good man. He’ll make you a good husband.”
“What will you do?”
He patted my rump. “I’ll think of you while I make love to other women. I’ll pretend they’re you.” He laughed and chucked me under the chin.
“How can you say such things!” I didn’t know whether to be flattered, angry, hurt, and was all three simultaneously, and in varying degrees and sequences. “How can you say that?”
“Now don’t look so downcast, little goose. Give us a kiss. It’s not the end. We’ll love each other all our lives. If we met when we were eighty, don’t you think we’d leap into each other’s arms? This is simply a practical solution. I’m not going anywhere, and after you’re married, I’ll send word to you. We’ll find ways to meet.” And then his hands were moving over me, and I thrust him away, shouting at him angrily, until he pinned me in both arms, laughing and kissing me. I broke down into tears then, and wept while he held me, crooning love words in my ear.
I lie awake now, all these years later, remembering as if all this had happened yesterday. It’s a sad story.
I lived nine years with Roland-Pierre, and slept beside him most of that time; and yet it’s William’s face I remember hovering over mine, his arms, his voice.
I loved Roland-Pierre in a mild and kindly way, and he made a good husband and a good father to my Guillamette, and he loved her too, as smiling proud and awed as ever a father felt when he held the new baby in his arms. As she grew, he delighted in her pretty ways, and he grieved her loss with his own hot tears, though knowing that she was not of his own seed.
After my marriage to Roland-Pierre, I stayed away from any place where William and I might chance to meet. I gave up my work for the Resistance, became an honest married woman and mother to my girl. As for William, I hated him, but I knew if he were to walk in the door and beckon, I would go.
EIGHTEEN
Another day: it’s time to hide my book.
Jerome has taken the sheep to a high pasture and will be gone all day. I look first all over the house, but it has only the two small rooms, no attic space, no hidey-holes. I step out of doors, patting the treasure at my knee, and as I breathe in the sweet soft balmy air, the clear hay-scented air that always follows a storm, standing, looking out, I realize how much I’ve changed.
I don’t want Jerome harmed. The thought jolts me. It’s the first time in many months that I’ve thought of someone besides myself. Stranger yet, I’m thinking of the future instead of dwelling on the past. I don’t want Jerome imprisoned because of me or a foolish cord that I no longer wear, or because of the sacred Word, the discovery of which would mean torture and death. Yet I never gave a thought to Mistress Flavia when I stayed there. She could have been killed too, she and her husband and little boy. I feel ashamed. Had they only known what danger they were in!
I stare at the black flagstone threshold, then out at the view. Overhead the clouds are scudding across a milk-curdled sky like running sheep or like the flash of sea-spume on the crest of waves, and the muddy yard looks homey and familiar with its trodden hoofprints and with the poles of the shabby cart tilted aslant against the shed.
I cross to the gate, half off its rusting hinge, and begin to climb up the grassy footpath. My eyes are searching for a hole, a cave, a loose stone. I walk a while before I see what I’m looking for: a beech tree clinging to the side of the hill. Its roots are partially exposed, and they snake into the earth and out again, forming small cavities and gripping deep. Best of all, the tree is off the beaten path.
It takes only a moment to scoop a hole in the dirt between the roots and push my small book, protected by its green oilcloth, deep under the tangle of knotted roots. I close up the hole with dirt and stones and scrape the wet grass forward to hide the exposed earth. When I step back, I can’t see much. Tomorrow I’ll plant a little bush right there, to hide it further. Meanwhile I return to the path and then see my skirts have bent down the shining, dew-glittering grasses. Anyone can see someone had business at the tree.
To cover my tracks, I reenter the little trail and stoop down to do my business. Yes: a strong brown stool, lest anyone wonder why someone passed this way. By noon the grass will have sprung up again to hide the forbidden Word of God, held in the grasp of the kindly tree.
When I get back to the house, Jerome is there. My heart skips. I suppose my face lights up. But he is staring at my hands, covered with earth, my sloppy shoes and muddy skirts. Inadvertently, I hide my hands behind my back.
“You’re back early.” I’m as guilty as a schoolgirl caught.
“Where have you been?” he asks.
“Nowhere. Up the hill. I wanted to take a walk.”
“Take a walk?”
“I wanted to see the farmyard from above, that’s all.”
He stares at me quietly. I can see him chewing over my lies, and he knows I’m lying. I feel the blush rise to my throat and spread over my face.
“Oh, now I can’t go out to do my own business? You have some objection? I walked out to look about, if you must know. Now I’ve come back for the water buckets. I thought to do the wash. Do you mind?”
In Future-time they put the linens and bedclothes into barrels and whisper magic words and the barrels do the work. No wonder the women don’t grow old.
“And what are you doing home at this hour? As if there isn’t work to do?” My voice goes soft. “You’re not sick, are you? You’ve not been hurt?” I take a step forward and stop myself.
He shakes his head no. “I forgot the grip I need to repair the rake. I came back for it.”
“Well, since you’re here,” I nod toward the waterskins. “Help me lift the buckets on the pony. I can’t stand here all day. There’s work to be done.�
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Jerome runs his thumb thoughtfully up and down across his nose, wiping away his thought, and lifts the empty water-sacks on the pony’s back.
“Can you fill them? They’ll be heavy when they’re full.”
“I’m strong.”
“I’ll see you later then.” He stands, arms crossed, watching me trudge off, leading the pony by its halter-rope. At least the book is safe. Jerome will not be hurt.
Jerome stood a moment, running his tongue thoughtfully around his teeth, considering this conversation, the way she’d ducked her head and wouldn’t meet his eyes. What did he really know about her? He was half-certain that she had lived with the heretics and wholly certain that she was not in her right mind, the way she slipped in and out of her tall-tale fantasies. Perhaps she’d never been at Montségur, knew nothing of a buried treasure. Yet he’d stake a pig that she’d been there, perhaps as a baker’s wife or a soldier’s paramour. For all he knew, the experience had scrambled her brains so that she imagined herself a member of the nobility, and thence unwound her wild fantastical love-story with a knight. Jerome did not believe half of her ravings, but they were entertaining tales, and then too, he could not shake from his head the idea planted by Bernard on market-day of the Cathar treasure. What if, by chance, Jeanne really had been at Montségur? What if she knew something of the treasure? He kicked a stone across the yard and watched it plink against another, skip, and come to rest. Dead as a stone. Bernard had said the Inquisitors were searching for a woman.
From his gate, Jerome stared out at the wood and out toward his back-breaking field. He eked out a hard existence on his farm. What he could not do with even a few pieces of silver or of gold! A peasant never saw the like of that; he dealt in pennies if in coin at all. Imagine treasure! He could buy seed, hire a man to work the farm with him, repair the gate, even buy an ox, for an ox was stronger by far than a donkey or pony. He’d plant a vineyard, and add apple and cherry trees in the orchard, pears and quince, and then thinking of Jeanne going for water, he dreamed that he’d build a spring-fed washpool for her. He would line it with good stones to hold the clean water; he would add a rock at one end for her to beat the clothes on. Perhaps the farm could even be enlarged enough to support one of his daughters and her family; or maybe he’d buy that piece of bottomland down in the valley owned by Raymond Domergue.
He found the grip he’d come back for and trailed out to the field again, fondling his dreams and turning over in his mind the handsome woman who had come so suddenly into his life, like a miracle, come unexpectedly to help him with the farmwork and remove his loneliness. He remembered the way her face had changed to concern for him, just now, when she thought he might be hurt. Yet he knew he had to be careful. She was a little mad. Moreover, she had been badly hurt. She was frightened. A wrong word, an unguarded gesture, and she’d be off. He knew this as surely as he knew how to soothe a shy horse or ease it past a danger point; how to rub its muscles and talk it down with patience and quiet stillness. She was a wild woman, and perhaps even a witch, for surely she was bewitching him with her stories and her laughter. For example, her tales of future life. Imagine common people reading books. He snorted impatiently. Imagine the number of copyists you’d need for everyone to have a book.
He bent over his work, shifting and twisting the blades of the rake back into shape. Then he sharpened his scythe once more and set to work. When he stopped again, the sweat pouring down his back and neck, he still had not decided what to do.
There was the business of the Lady Esclarmonde, sister of the Count of Foix. The only thing Jerome knew about this noblewoman was a tavern tale he’d heard of how Saint Dominic’s companion, Brother Stephen, had put her in her place when she’d tried to join a discussion on spiritual matters.
“Go tend your distaff, madam; it is no business of yours to discuss matters such as these.”
Some of the men in the tavern had snickered at the monk’s cleverness, and others had laughed at the disdain this woman must have felt for the foreigner’s boorish remark. She was educated, the mistress of her own lands, and not accustomed to being dismissed.
On the other hand, Jerome remembered also how years ago four hundred perfecti, both men and women, were burnt at Lavaur, when the Crusaders took the town. Four hundred in one swoop! They were protected by the chatelaine of Lavaur, Guiraude, daughter of the renowned perfecta Blanche de Laurac (and even Jerome had heard of this woman, famous for her charity and prayers). And yet when the fortress was taken, the Crusaders, against all the principles of war and chivalry, dragged Guiraude out of the town gates, threw her in a well, then stoned her until she was buried. Her position was not enough to save her from the mob. What would happen to a solitary peasant woman?
The wars raged on, sometimes with one side acting, then another. At Cordes an angry crowd threw three Dominican Inquisitors into a well. But the following year at Moissac, the Inquisitors burnt two hundred and ten persons at the stake. At one point the Inquisitors were expelled from Toulouse, but on their return to power a hundred eighty-three perfecti were burnt alive at Marne.
And here was Jeanne.
One moment he thought to send her packing. He’d tell her tonight that in the morning she’d have to leave. He’d be generous: he’d give her a waterskin and bread and onions, maybe some raw pulse.
The next moment he decided he would take her to church on Sunday; he would watch to see how she sat through the service, and whether she knew the Catholic ways or not. Witches did not like church, and neither did heretics, he guessed, although if truth be told (removing his cap and rubbing his sweating brow with one forearm), he had no experience with either one. He’d never met a witch, but he’d heard of them riding on their broomsticks by night, and weren’t they ugly creatures, bent and ancient, with chins that thrust forward in toothless mouths as if to touch their long hooked noses? Well, Jeanne did not resemble that. Moreover, he himself was a good Catholic, a believer in Christ our Lord, and no witch or heretic could harm him so long as he attended Mass and said his sacred prayers—as he did, God knows, every night.
No, she was a good woman, he conceded, to think of drawing water for the wash. And not unpleasing to look at. And what if by chance she really could lead him to gold coin? So his mind circled the problem. Who was she?
On impulse, he set down his tools and turned to climb the hillside above the house where Jeanne had gone. It didn’t take long to reach the beech tree. Jerome stood, pensively rubbing his nose. The tracks were clear: here she had stopped and moved off the beaten path, cut through the thick grass to the left. Yet the mix of ash and beech trees hid the view that she’d claimed to be seeking, and no one would climb this high anyway, he thought, just to look at the land. You could see across his field from the barnyard gate.
He stared at the grass, partially beaten down but rising as the stalks dried in the sun. She had stepped right up to the tree; that much was clear. Faugh! He bent to part the grass and examine the wet stool, then rose, his eyes tracing the great exposed roots of the beech tree. He looked back at the surrounding brush, the white trees standing silent as sentinels, the footpath winding on up the mountain.
But why had she walked all this way? Above his head the beech leaves shivered gently. He could almost feel the heat of the trees, as if they knew and breathed their secrets to the air. The beech was whitish-gray, with thin, smooth bark. Its thick roots twisted like snakes, gripping into the rocky ground so hard that Jerome wondered if the dirt and earth provided purchase for the tree or if those huge roots, those giant’s fingers, were holding up the elemental rock.
He gave one more look about before he turned and made his way back down to the field. His curiosity was still not satisfied: she’d come that far for some reason, and she hadn’t told him why. Now what was he to do? He remembered Alzeu. If she was a heretic, his keeping her was dangerous.
I lift the waterbags from the pony. They are heavy, and they will be heavier yet when full. The pony drops his
shaggy head to crop the cress and long wet grass beside the giggling stream, and a sudden whiff of mint fills the air. I stop a moment, staring at the light-struck, rippling water, thinking about my conversations with Jerome. For the first time I see myself as a selfish, grasping child. I had not loved William. I had wanted him, and I did everything I could to possess and hold him. Had I ever asked what I could do for him?
NINETEEN
Sunday. We prepare for church, Jerome and I. He has insisted. My heart is battering my chest as if it wants to get out, and my hands shake, but I brush my clothes, wipe my shoes, tie an apron over my gray woolen gown. Nothing I can do to look much better. Jerome puts on the clean shirt I washed, and over this a sleeveless coat. His boots lace up his hose. He looks nice. But though I manage a weak smile, I want to run. How can I go into the church that killed my friends? Pretend to worship? And what am I to do in church? Stand up and confess to everyone, or scream out my anger at God, the cross, the priest who will read the lessons and give a sermon while I squirm? I can hardly breathe, and yet Jerome has taken my arm harshly and is pulling me along, and though my feet are wooden, so that I stumble awkwardly, I cannot find the strength to resist.
“Do you go every week?” I ask, hoping for distraction.
“No, but when I can, and every holy day. To give my thanks and prayers. I’m a good Catholic.”
We walk the few miles to the stone chapel, and all the while his grip is firm on my arm. The little church nestles in a fold of the hills, on the outskirts of a few scattered houses that like to call themselves a village. The bells are ringing gaily in the thin air as we approach.
“Ah, Domergue!” Jerome calls out, throwing up his hand in greeting. They stand in a knot at the church door, a clutch of men and women and two children, curious as cats to meet the woman Jerome’s found. I hang back shyly.
The Treasure of Montsegur Page 18