It was bound in ancient calf, as hard as wood, and held together with silver clasps. I opened the lock and saw that the pages, thick and rich, were beautiful in their black lettering and gilt or red or lapis illuminations.
“Bishop Marty gave it to Poitevin last night,” said Hugon, beaming down on it, on me. “And he asked me now to give it to you. It will protect you, he says.”
“For me?”
I turned the Holy Book in my hands, disbelieving, awed.
“It’s all four of the Gospels, Jeanne, and a few of the psalms. It belonged to Guilhabert de Castres. Guard it, Jeanne. It’s written in our common Occitan, so that the simplest man may read it, and it’s forbidden, therefore, by the Catholic Church. Never let anyone see you with it.”
“Perhaps you’d better keep it for me,” I said hesitantly. “Until I come back tonight.”
“No, you’d best take it now,” he said, smiling gravely. “I have another gift for you.”
“Another?”
“This one is from Amiel. He says to tell you that the consolamentum will be given you. You will not die without it. That’s his promise.”
I laughed ruefully, for the promise seemed unnecessary. “When I get back,” I said. “When we reach Lombardy.”
He did not respond to my assertion, but touched my elbow. “Now kneel down to receive my gift,” he said.
I knelt before him, clasping the holy scripture, and he placed both hands on my head. I felt a runnel of light score through me, the same light that I had felt as a child with Esclarmonde and later with Guilhabert de Castres—the Cathar Light. I must have made a sound, for Hugon laughed softly.
“Isn’t that nice?” he asked. “I give you the Peace.”
I rose in awe. He smiled, nodded once, touched my elbow lightly, turned, and walked resolutely away, and as he joined the others they fell in step beside him, all three without a backward look.
For a moment I almost ran back to them. Then I twisted in my tracks, lifted my skirts, and ran down the path as fast as I could go, running back toward Montségur. I felt elated, my spirits high and the Good Book in my hand, not knowing which was the more precious gift, the Holy Word in my possession or the blessing of light I’d just received. But I had no time for reflection.
I was tired by the time I climbed into the cold and snowy foothills; and when I came near I saw that streamers of fog sifted around the foot of Montségur, shrouding the trees.
I worked my way into the heavy woods to the east, across the river from the pog, and staying high in the trees, I trudged through the wet until I could see the meadow at the foot of Montségur. My shoes were filled with snow, my feet and hands frozen, and my teeth chattering, for I was higher now than in the warm valley, and the forest held the cold.
I hid in a thicket and chewed on a piece of the bread. By now the fog had burnt off the mountaintop, so that the fortress parapets gleamed in the sun.
Below me, at the foot of the mountain, I watched the French soldiers moving in the white mist about the pyre. They had brought in wagonloads of straw and kindling, covered by huge logs, and the logs slathered then with pitch. In days past, we had seen them building it from the fortress. The pyre was surrounded by a palisade of outward-pointing sharpened stakes. One gate led into this death-corral. Up in the fortress the Friends of God were waiting. Meanwhile, nothing happened. Time dragged. I’d had no sleep since the night before, and I was exhausted. My eyes closed.
I jerked awake at the sound of voices. There, trailing down the steep path from the fortress, came the perfecti, some with their hands tied behind their backs, but others unbound. I was too far away to make out faces. I edged down the slope, holding on to trees, inching forward to get a better view (though why I wanted to see my friends in such a state I cannot say). My stomach twisted and my knees went weak. The fog had lifted under the noon sunshine. Above my head the trees swayed dizzily.
“Oh, God, Lord Christ, save them,” I prayed fervently, and I held Poitevin’s scripture to my heart and kissed it with utter devotion, for had not our Lord Himself promised that our prayers are answered always, if we but have faith?
“Let them live!” I prayed. “Thank you that they live!”
They wound down the mountain path, men and women, in a long line, like ants from an anthill, two hundred of them and more, most of them in their long black robes but some in ordinary garb. They gathered on the wet grass before the palisade. They shifted and moved among themselves, saying their last good-byes, and I thought I could make out some of the women:
Marquésia de Lantar, mother-in-law to Raymond de Perella
Braïda de Montserver, mother-in-law to Arnaud-Roger of Mirepoix
Ermendarge d’Ussat
Guiraude de Caraman
Ramonde de Cuq
India de Fanjeaux
Saissa du Congost
And then the men: there was Arnaud des Cassès with his brother
Raymond Isarn, Guillaume d’Issus, and Jean de Lagarde
Raymond Agulher, who was bishop of Razès
Jean de Combel
Bernard Guilhem
For a moment I caught a glimpse of Corba with little Esclarmonde—mother helping daughter on her crutch—but then lost sight of them. I spotted Raymond de Belis, an archer who had arrived at the beginning of the siege, and there was Arnaud de Bensa, one of those who had massacred the Inquisitors at Avignonet. Oh, and there was Sergeant Pons Narbona, who had taken the consolamentum at the last minute, together with his wife, Arsende.
Then, with an involuntary cry, I saw William stumbling on his crutch and holding Baiona by one hand, the two of them not bound. I longed to shout out at them, to tell them of my love, but the next moment I lost them in the surge of people, so many on the open plain.
A bird twittered nearby, and perhaps because it sharpened my ear, I caught the sound of singing. Singing—imagine! At such a moment, singing! Their voices carried in snatches on the wind. They were singing praises to the Lord, and no sooner had I comprehended this fact than in horror I saw they were being herded into the palisade. Those whose hands were free, not tied behind their backs, helped the others up the logs, and once having climbed onto the pyre they held each other in their arms.
“God, You who promise that all prayers are answered: Save them!” I cried. I wanted to scream, for the soldiers had lit their torches. The flames leapt up, and then the men were circling the palisade and touching their torches to the straw and pitch-spread faggots. I shouted, “No!” for the smoke was rising black against their feet. Yet still I could not believe that they could be killed. Again I screamed out “No!” and rose to my feet, shouting and waving in anguish to the angels of God. But the red flames licked at the logs, and the martyrs, my friends, were still singing psalms to God, still holding one another, as the tongues of fire leapt skyward, were still praying…until the singing turned to screams.
A black cloud hung over the plain and moved out toward the woods, smoke stench screams enveloping me. I ran. I ran from the touch of the black smoke, the fingers of my burning friends. Screams filled my ears.
Or were they mine?
The sound of my own breathing as I ran. And then a stab of pain in my lungs, and another in my side so sharp that I stopped running and, gasping for breath, held to the rough, scabrous trunk of a pine, held hard with both scarred hands, then stumbled on, my feet moving by themselves, over the soggy pine needles, through snowy hollows and across the gushing snowmelt rivulets. Walking, walking, walking. Where was my Lord now? I went mad.
I came round a fallen tree, tripped, and fell at the feet of the surprised young guard. His sword flashed.
“Wotcha doing here?”
With a roar I attacked. I could have killed him in my rage. I saw his face crumbling in fear as he stepped back. But I threw the stone onto the ground and fled, crying to myself—yes, and to that dark smudge that still poured across the heavens, silting up the sky.
How long did I run?
After a time I sat down on a log, exhausted and hungry. It was growing dark. To my surprise I found a scrap of bread in my pocket, and I began to chew slowly, mechanically, tasting nothing, dry ashes in my mouth; and then to my astonishment my hand pulled out a book. I turned it, marveling, in my hands. Where had it come from? I had no memory of a precious book. These things are valuable, copied letter by deliberate letter over years and years. Chewing, I chewed and puzzled over the mystery. I looked around me blindly and recognized nothing. Light failing.
Where was I? I held the Good Book, thinking, When I open it, wherever my eye lights, that is a message for me.
It opened to the passage Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not better than they?
I sat there a long time, surrounded by the gathering dusk.
Slowly my thoughts retraced their path, returned over their lost musings, remembering the black smoke befouling the sun, how I had climbed up the hill, moving from the shadow toward the sunlight, how I’d held the branch of the pine and seen my friends burning on the pyre. Then I remembered walking. Then Hugon and Poitevin! Amiel!
With a start I came to my feet. Night had fallen. I was supposed to be over the Souloumbriè Pass by now, heading for the cave!
In panic I twisted round, first in one direction, then the next, wondering where I was, for I had run a long distance. I’d lost my way. The sky was overcast. No stars. No signs by which to tell north from south. I stumbled on, hoping to find a landmark. The branches whipped my face.
“Lead me,” I prayed. “Take me back to the perfecti. I have to find them tonight. We leave in the morning. I must find the Good Men.”
It was full morning by the time I reached the cave. The sun was high in the dome of heaven. Sunlight streamed onto the high, greenish-yellow grass. I was dizzy with fatigue. I knew now why they’d told me not to leave.
At the guard-stones I called out, “Hugon! Amiel! Poitevin!”
No answer.
I ducked into the crevice, then groped along the rocky wall. “Amiel!” I called. “Hugon!” My own voice echoed back in response, and the bats stirred and chirruped in their sleep. One flew out past me, to my horror, and others moved in waves on the ceiling like a single furry body, one black, demonic creature.
When I reached the cache, I felt around with my blind hands and found the bags still there. I lifted their weight and could tell that they were full. I left them and stumbled back out into the light, searching the landscape for the men.
Nothing moved. “Hugon!” I trumpeted. “Poitevin!”
My voice carried on the wind.
Finally I sat on the warm grass, my back to a guardian stone, to wait. The grip of fatigue was so strong that I soon lay down, curled on my side, utterly worn out. Despair had me in its clutches too: I had lost the Good Men. Nor did I know where to search for them. I had walked for a night, a day, and then another night, and now I had no strength left. Exhausted, I fell asleep.
When I awoke, the sun was bleeding low behind the mountain, and long green shadows swept across the meadows. A light wind soughed and stirred the branches of a nearby pine, rippling the grass. I was thirsty, hungry, dirty, lost. I was anxious too. Where were my perfecti, my charges? My feet were swollen and bruised. I could hardly step on them; but my physical pain was nothing compared to that of my soul: for I had lost the treasure of Montségur. I had lost the three Good Christians. Where were they? And how would they find their way to Lombardy? My prayers now were for the Church of Love, for the Good Men, for myself, who had failed at every turn: failed to die with my friends, failed to save the Cathar treasure, failed to take the Light. I was left with a cave of money, that was all.
For all that second night and another full day I stayed in sight of the cave, waiting for my darlings to arrive. It was hunger that finally drove me away. When I could no longer ignore the urgent pangs, I went into the cave, opened a bag, and borrowed a handful of small coins, for I had no money, no sustenance. Then I hid the bags even deeper in the cave and began my walk.
TWENTY-FIVE
“And the gold and silver, the bullion and books, the Holy Grail?”
“I left everything there. All but a few coins, and I’ll give them back someday. Somehow.”
There was silence for a time. Jeanne felt a change in Jerome. He’d pulled away, withdrawn into his private thoughts, and though her head still rested on his shoulder, she didn’t know what more to say.
“I’m getting up,” Jerome said suddenly.
“It’s not yet dawn.”
“Stay in bed.” It was an order.
“And you?”
“I want to be alone.”
When he came in later for breakfast, Jeanne looked up expectantly. She moved from the fire toward him, but involuntarily he shrank back.
“What is it?” he asked stiffly.
“I don’t know. Hold me,” said Jeanne, with a tentative smile. But he had no resources to assist her.
“No.” He shifted past her, eyes lowered, to fill his bowl with porridge. He waved his spoon at her and hunkered on the bench outside the door, uncompromising, swallowing his porridge in stony silence. He ate solemnly, turning over the things he’d heard the night before, and as he did he observed the beauty of the little farm. A white tinge of early frost clung to the ground, covering the choppy, hardened mud and hoofprints. When Jeanne came outside, wiping her hands on her apron, he frowned and looked away, though not before he saw her mouth twitch, lips pressed together, stung.
“I’m going to visit Bernadette,” she said. “I’ll be there most of the day. She’s still not well, and Alazaïs with too much on her hands to care for one thing more.”
He grunted.
She sat down beside him on the bench. “Do you want anything before I go?”
“What happened to the Holy Book?” He shot her an accusing look.
“The book.”
“The one they gave you.” A Bible was worth untold sums, if it could ever be sold. Jerome had never held a book in his hands, not in all his life, and suddenly he was shot with jealousy of this woman who said she’d been given a book, knew how to read. “The book you say you had.”
She flushed. “I don’t have it on me anymore.” Her voice hard.
“Lost it? Like the treasure?” Why was he going on like this? He felt angry with the woman. “Was it all a lie?”
“If that’s what you think.”
He saw the hurt on her face. It made him want to strike her, because what was he to do with the knowledge she’d given him last night?
“Are you saying it’s not a lie? Woman, look me in the eye. Can you swear that everything you said last night was true?”
But her eyes skittered round the yard, the way they used to do when he’d first met her, rolling from side to fearful side; and he realized how much she’d changed in the last weeks, how calm she’d grown in the safety of his careful nurturing; if he did not watch out, she would revert to her former crazy ways. He had to get a hold of himself, lest he make a wrong move.
“What’s it to you?” she asked. “It’s not important. You wanted my story. Believe it if you want, or not. It’s nothing to me what you think.”
“Were you involved in the murders at Avignonet?” He could not stop his tongue from pushing on. “Did you carry messages to plan that act?”
She stared at him; for a long moment she held his eyes. “No. I had nothing to do with that. Now I have to go. I have better things to do than stand here arguing with you, defending myself. Bernadette Domergue is sick.
“I’m not going to stand here arguing,” she repeated angrily.
As the days passed, everything seemed to shift from bad to worse. One day Jerome tripped and painfully twisted his knee. Now he walked with a limp. And still he had not walked to town to meet Bernard. Each day he put it off, always finding one more chore to keep him on the farm.
One morning he
took the pony and the cart up the mountain to cut wood for the winter, his mind still uneasy. The sound of the ax rang out in the chill air, and after a time, as he built up heat, he took off his jacket. He stood a moment, mopping his brow and letting the cool sink in, and then attacked the tree again as if it were the enemy and he were fighting for his life: crack! crack! fell the ax, Jerome’s body so balanced that the entire force of his turning weight and all his shoulder muscles lay behind each blow.
The tree swayed, staggered, toppled slowly to the ground. Wiry and strong, he straddled the trunk, preparing to trim the branches. It was a good tree, and when it had seasoned it would burn well. He stopped, the ax swinging in a fine arc: “burn well,” burning, everything was burning. His mind was on fire, his belly. It was ironic that Jeanne could build up the fire in the house, cook on the fire, odd that she was unafraid of fire after what had happened to her. He had asked her about that one day. “It wasn’t the fault of the fire,” she’d answered with a shrug. Awkward. Practical. But he could not remove from his memory the images she’d drawn, the dangers she had undergone. He had pushed her to tell her story. She had done so. He hadn’t realized everything would change.
Jerome was a simple farmer. What did he know of politics? Or ethics, right and wrong? Or the wars of the religious? Whom could he ask for advice? The priest? He gave a bitter laugh, then shuddered, glancing quickly over his shoulder at the forest that surrounded him, as if someone might be watching. For no one must know—not Bernard, not the neighbors. The truth was, his days were brighter and his nights warmer for Jeanne’s presence. He liked to come home in the evening and find her singing softly as she worked—though there hadn’t been much singing the last few days—the house cozy with warm smells. He liked the way her face lit up at sight of him, the way she nagged affectionately and pushed him around, the way she made him laugh.
She had taken over the care of the house and farmyard, and when he went to the fields she always had a loaf of bread for him, or soup or boiled eggs, and when he returned at night he was sure to find a good lentil stew, sometimes even with a little meat in it. The house was clean, his torn clothing neatly patched. He wondered if Bernard would understand how a man lives for years, preparing his own sparse (often cold) meals and going to bed hungry and lonely in the dark, worrying that the farm is declining, the work too much for him, and how he feels when a woman comes and everything lights up.
The Treasure of Montsegur Page 26