The Treasure of Montsegur

by Sophy Burnham

  He looked heavenward then, his wispy hair a halo, face drawn. Soon he too would be burnt.

  Then he faced me again. “Last—the final reason I ask this of you: you don’t want to die.”

  “Yes, but I’m pledged to take the consolamentum,” I said, “and die with my friends.”

  “When you’re safe in Lombardy, you’ll have numerous Good Christians to give it to you. I’m only asking for a delay.”

  What irony! Only hours earlier I had wanted to live, and now that I was asked to forgo death, I chewed my nails nervously. “Let me think,” I said. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Yes, you do,” he said gently. “I’ve known you many years, Jeanne. You are passionate and impulsive, and not even age has dimmed your quickness of mind—which was put there, I think, by God. You imagine that you’ll be failing your friends if you do this, when in fact you’ll be helping everyone.

  “Now let me give you some consolations to take with you. This scripture passage will be yours. Hold it to your heart. Repeat it with me.

  “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” To my surprise, he recited the entire Twenty-third Psalm. “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He restoreth my soul…. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil….”

  When he finished, he looked deep into my eyes. His own eyes, watery with age, had faded to pale gray. “These words are for you, Jeanne. Remember that wherever you are, there too is God. Remember also the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, how He spoke of the lilies of the field, and how they are fully clad by God.”

  “He meant clad in beauty,” I said.

  “No, he meant it literally. Listen to me. You need do nothing, Jeanne, nothing but surrender every moment unto God. You will be clothed, fed, cared for. These aren’t idle words. When you give your life totally to God, all the power of Providence shall take care of you. You no longer belong to yourself, but only to God, the Force of Love, and the great I AM will take care of you. You are already a believer, already in service. You are His donkey, His dog. Remember, just to listen to His voice. He will make himself known to you. Go away alone. Listen. Do not speak of it; but always—promise me—always obey. Even when it makes no sense, obey it. Do you understand?”

  I nodded.

  “How do I know the will of God from my own desire?” I asked.

  “There are four ways,” he said. “First, the will of God is inexorable. It won’t be swayed. Nothing that we do can prevent its working out.

  “Second, the will of God is constant, steady, strong.”

  “So if I want something for a long time,” I said and smiled bitterly, thinking of my longing for William, “it means it is the will of God?”

  “Shut your eyes,” he said.

  I did so. The silence drew out. Suddenly my little daughter, Guillamette, a two-year-old, was skipping down a road beside me. She dashed to a flower, then to a ditch, dodging first before me, then behind, dancing and twirling, her attention easily diverted by cloud and clod, while I, her mother, walked stately down the center of the road, watching lest she hurt herself; I saw that in just this way is fickle human will—a baby’s, by comparison to the steadiness of God.

  “Yes.” I opened my eyes. “I understand.”

  “Third, you will know the will of God by its effects in your body. You will feel a tingling or physical sensation, a powerful charge that goes beyond your normal desire.

  “And fourth is this: the will of God, difficult as it is to follow—you’ll know it by its Joy! It brings you Joy.” He leaned forward, smiling as Guilhabert used to smile at me, glowing with his inner wealth. “The joy God gives is more than mere happiness, which comes and goes.”

  “Yes.” I nodded dumbly. Then, aware of my own resentments and impurity, I burst out, “I am not worthy. I am filled with hate. I’m angry. I’m afraid. I’ll never be a pure Good Christian.”

  “Ah, you’ll be the best,” he said, “because you are aware of it. Don’t you think we all have anger and fear? All of us do. It’s our lifelong practice.”

  “The Friends of God do too?”

  “Of course.” He laughed. “That’s what we’re doing all the time: watching our weaknesses. The trick is not to be rid of emotions, but to observe them in ourselves quietly, without judgment, to be aware of them so that they don’t take us hostage, forcing wrong actions or false words. Do you remember the Gospel of John, where Christ says to be on guard, as alert as the man who is waiting for a thief he knows is coming to rob him that night? That’s how sharply we need to stand watch over our evil ways.”

  “And you? Do you hold resentments, get jealous? Do you feel doubt? Are you ever afraid?”

  “Of course,” he said, smiling sadly. “I watch the dark emotions all the time. If we observe them carefully, and if we allow and love them, they’ll go and play elsewhere. But as long as you’re alive, Jeanne, you’ll have fear, anger, grief, sorrow, jealousy. But they don’t need to rule you; you’ll feel them, but you won’t have to act them out.

  “One last word,” he said. “Wherever you find love, there you will always find the angels of God. A mother, two lovers, a farmer in his fields, the food you eat, the silver-spilling water—these are nothing but the expressions of God. Whenever you hold up the cup of compassion to another person, Jeanne, whenever you help another or give her something to drink, you are holding out the Holy Grail. Do you understand? The Grail is your compassion.

  “Now let me bless you again,” he said, smiling. “You’re in charge of our treasure, Jeanne, and with the help of God you’ll keep our treasure safe.”

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll go tell Baiona and William.”

  “No! No one must know. You go in hiding with the others now. That way no one needs to lie if any questions are asked.”

  “I can’t even say good-bye? I said I’d take the consolamentum with them tonight. They’ll think I’m a coward. They’ll think I ran away.” My hands were fluttering. Tears pricked my eyes. “They’ll be burnt in only two days, on the sixteenth.”

  “Hush now. Come with me.”

  We went into hiding that night. I lay weeping, trembling in the dark while outside my friends took the robe without me. I tried to send them mental messages that I had not run away or abandoned them, that I was with them as they took their vows. Eventually I fell into a troubled sleep. All next day, lying in that dark hole as the boots of the French Crusaders moved back and forth above our heads, I imagined what was happening in the fortress: how the French were setting up a table in the courtyard, according to the terms of the surrender, and how all the people in the fort were approaching, one by one, to give the scribes their names and stations in life as perfected heretics who would be burnt, or as soldiers or civilians who could be released.

  But the four of us lay hidden, barely breathing, waiting for nightfall when secretly we would be lowered off the mountain and sent away.

  “Then you’re safe!” cries Jerome excitedly, sitting up in bed.

  “Safe?”

  “Your name isn’t on any list. There’s no one to say you were ever at Montségur.” He pulls me to him. “You’re safe,” he repeats.

  “But I was there.”

  “Not if no one knows. Not if you never tell. Everyone who knew you was burnt, and your name appears on no one’s lists.” He catches me in his delight, kissing and snuggling and cuffing me affectionately. “My Jeanne. Go on. What happened next?”

  “Aren’t you sleepy?”

  “Yes, but I want to hear.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  They lowered us down the cliff face on ropes. We swung in the chill dark, dangling over the precipice, and I prayed as my shoulder smashed against the stones. “Oh, God, help me.” I was swinging in the black air on the end of a rope, struggling for my footing and terrified, and the cliffside bruised my arms and hips. And then I was down and slipping unsteadily on the steep pitch of wet leaf-strewn earth, all smelling of rot and mol
d, finding my footing and clambering to the safety of a level space.

  We gathered at the foot of the cliff, murmuring to one another in concern. There was Amiel Aicart, the youngest and most graceful of the perfecti, with his pale blond beard and brown eyes; his happy socius, Hugon; and the older, speckle-bearded Poitevin, who came unaccompanied.

  “Are you all right?” we whispered to one another. I hugged myself under my woolen mantle. Hugon shook each rope to signal Bishop Marty, and we turned, giving thanks, all four of us, and began to slip and scramble down the black hill over the snow-soaked leaves.

  I felt Amiel’s hand on my shoulder. “Are you all right, Jeanne?”

  “Yes.”

  He put his face close to mine, peering at me intently in the darkness of the wood. “Don’t cry,” he whispered. “We are doing God’s work now. You are chosen, Jeanne. Be glad.”

  “Pray for me.” I smiled bravely back at him. “That I may have a good death.” But what I wanted to say was, a good life; for death lay all around us, and I felt it lurking in the four elements of earth, air, water, and fire: lying in wait to trip my feet; or whispering its presence on the wind and pulling at me to fall from the rope; gurgling, should we trip in crossing the churning river; and waiting also as fire, should we be captured that night. Death was a black dog running beside me, close underfoot, and I was afraid of it.

  We descended through scrub-brush into the warmth of the valley, where the vegetation changed to long grass and briars. No one spoke. A light rain began to fall, and I wondered whether, if it rained hard enough, the French would postpone the burning, or perhaps if it rained long and hard for days on end, they would reconsider, believing that the hand of God was giving them a sign. So I prayed for an outright deluge, but the sprinkling stopped after a bit. We walked with heads bowed in grim silence. Once I heard Hugon murmur gravely to Amiel, but what he said I didn’t hear.

  The moon came out, a golden globe riding the bowl of night. The wind lifted, and the moon tore through clouds and stars as if they too were infected with our haste, hurrying through the hours as we were hurrying down below. We moved across the meadows in long single-file, and into the shelter of the woods, the men striding out in their leather jerkins and breeches, I in the lead, though hindered by the muddy skirts that wrapped around my ankles with each step.

  A stranger, seeing us by day, might have thought us simply travelers who had lost the road, except no honest travelers would be so foolish as to walk by night. The Good Men were thin, but they looked no worse than artisans in their rough leather, and no one could see the sacred cord tied around their waists, hidden beneath their shirts. They wore strong leather shoes, and their hands were work-hardened, chapped from the elements; their bearded cheeks were ruddy from wind. I could have been the wife of one of them.

  By dawn we had circled the mountain and were heading south; we’d had to go out of our way to avoid the enemy troops.

  “We’ll stop here,” I said softly, for by now it was second nature to speak in whispers, murmurs, among ourselves. Hidden in a grove of trees at the edge of grassland, we ate chunks of rich dark bread and drank from the nearby stream. The first pearl light was tinting the sky. We began to make out the looming shapes of trees around us, and in the distance the snow-tipped mountains gleaming white. In a few more moments—how quickly the sun came up!—we could discern white sheep speckling the high meadows before us, dim in that first gray light but brightening with every moment. We strained to see a shepherd among them but could see no human shape or movement.

  In the warmth of the valley, it was hard to believe that only a few hours earlier we had slogged through spots of wet spring snow on the slippery mountain. Now the ground gave underfoot, soft and spongy with the smells of spring.

  We were far from Montségur by then and would soon be at the caves near Bouan, at the Souloumbriè Pass.

  Suddenly a great anxiety fell over me, a desperate uneasiness. I have seen a dog or horse behave like this, unable to move forward. The dog will cast up and down whining and running back and forth as if unable to cross an invisible river at his feet. The horse will stamp his hooves and balk, spin on one hoof and rear, ears flattened, refusing to obey the rider’s whip or spur. He bolts backward, shies, clashes his bit, refusing to go past a particular gate or post.

  The three men stood up, wiping their mouths with their hands and their hands on their thighs, ready to proceed. But my face turned north, fixed, as the dipper is fixed on the polar star, circling that stable point. Every fiber in my body strained back toward Montségur.

  “I must go back,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Why?”

  “What is it, Jeanne?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Oh, sirs,” I cried in anguish, “please, let me go. I told Bertrand Marty that I would guide you to the cave and help carry the treasure into Lombardy. And I shall. I promise.”

  I threw myself at generous Hugon’s feet and turned, bowing in the dirt to Amiel Aicart as well. “Something awful is happening. I must go back.”

  “To Montségur?” asked the graceful Amiel, perplexed.

  “Listen.” I scrambled to my feet. “I can tell you how to find the cave. You go and wait for me there. I can go back to Montségur and return to you by nightfall. We can leave for Lombardy at first light tomorrow morning.”

  “There’s nothing you can do there, child,” said Poitevin, stroking his speckled beard. “It’s dangerous. You could be taken.”

  Amiel touched my elbow gently in his concern. “Jeanne,” he murmured. “They are burning our friends. It is not a thing to see.”

  But I stood before them helplessly and wept.

  “Now let us stop a moment and think,” said Poitevin. “Let me see what I can divine.”

  He sank onto a rock, eyes closed, and in a few minutes his body began to sway gently, like the stalk of a flower balanced in the air. Everyone settled down, sitting or standing to pray or meditate, wasting no time, until Poitevin returned to us.

  After a while Hugon and Amiel wandered off together up the stream, deep in conversation. I went downstream to relieve myself and then walked to the top of a small rise that gave a better view of the nearby land. In the distance I could see the hazy hump of Montségur, bluish-gray against the clouds. When I returned to the little group, the three men were hunkered on their heels, heads together in discussion. Poitevin rose at my approach.

  “If you go,” said Poitevin, “you won’t be back.”

  “I will!” I cried passionately. “I promise! I’ll be back before the moon sets. What difference does one day make? We’ll take the treasure into Lombardy as planned. I’ll pack double-weight to make up for slowing you down one day. Look, you can go into a trance and see what’s happening miles away, but I cannot. I want to say good-bye,” I said.

  There was silence.

  “Bishop Marty said I must listen to my inner voice—that it’s the voice of God.”

  “We’re afraid we may not meet again,” explained Amiel. “We’re afraid that something will happen to you, and that we’ll be separated.”

  “Do you wish the consolamentum before you go?” asked Poitevin, but he spoke to the blue sky, and his hat bobbed with the jerk of his movement. “Do you want us to give you the consolation?”

  I shook my head. “Not yet. Bishop Marty said to wait until we reach Lombardy. I may need to tell a lie or take an oath to help you three.”

  I was thinking of them and not of my fear of fire.

  “Very well,” said Hugon. “Tell us where the cave is. We’ll wait for you until tomorrow morning. But if you’re not back by morn, we must go on without you, lest the French discover our escape. We’ll wait only until sunrise tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be there earlier—by nightfall,” I said with relief. “I can go and return in one day. Wait for me!”

  With a stick I scraped a bare spot on the earth and drew directions to the cave.

  “The entrance is fo
und through a crevice in the rock,” I explained. “Go up this path heading east. The cliffs rise on your left, and when the trail opens out into the meadows and you think you’ve gone too far, you will see a weathered pine tree. Its trunk twists almost in a circle. That’s your landmark. Watch carefully toward your left, and you will see two giant boulders standing guard, close as soldiers side by side. The sentinels. Approach at an angle, and you will see a crevice between the stones; it’s small and down low, hidden at the base of the two rocks. That is the entrance.”

  Then I gave directions to the treasure hidden inside.

  “Wait for me inside the cave,” I repeated urgently. “You’ll be safe there. You can sleep and we’ll be ready to travel in the morning.”

  “And you? You won’t need sleep?” Poitevin smiled bitterly.

  I ducked my head. “I have to go.”

  “Be careful, Jeanne. Take no risks.”

  “Here,” said Hugon. “You’ll need food. It’s best if we divide our provisions now. Take your part.”

  The men divided our bread. I tucked my share in my pocket for later.

  Then I bowed three times to each in turn and kissed their hands and set my face back the way we’d come, toward Montségur. All I could think was that I must hurry.

  I had gone only a hundred yards when I heard my name called and, turning, saw good-humored Hugon running after me.

  “Jeanne!” He came up panting, his teeth gleaming in a happy smile.

  “What is it?”

  “Jeanne, Poitevin says that he’s afraid for you. In case we don’t meet again, he wants—”

  “I promise!”

  “He wants to give you this.”

  He held out a little packet wrapped in green oilcloth. “This is for you.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Open it.”

  Carefully I folded back the cloth. Inside lay—I looked up in surprise. “A book.”