The Treasure of Montsegur

by Sophy Burnham

  “I need food.”

  She puts a hunk of bread in my hand.

  I am so happy that I can only turn from one to another, smiling, laughing foolishly. They give me ale and a leftover oatcake, and then a sweet apple to break my fast. I feel my strength returning. As I eat, they pass on news. Bernadette’s husband, Raymond, has married the wet-nurse, who would have imagined? and the baby had colic but is doing well. The married daughter who lives away had another child, her fifth.

  “What happened?” I ask finally. “Do any of you know? They came today and let me out. For no reason and with no more questioning. They simply put me outside and said that I was free.”

  “We told them you were crazy,” says Alazaïs. She throws back her head, laughing, her fine teeth glowing. “We said you were a half-wit.” She taps her head. “Too happy, we said. But a good wife to Jerome.” Laughing, she throws her arms around me. “Now don’t go making liars of us all.”

  The smiling wet-nurse (I’ve already forgotten her name again) plops down on a bench, opens her blouse, and pulls out one beautiful, white moon of a milking breast to feed the boy. He slurps milk greedily. I can’t stop looking. I can’t get enough of life!

  “Crazy, eh?” I smile to myself. “Well, you didn’t lie.” Then in curiosity: “Who turned us in? I thought it might be you.”

  “We think it was the priest’s investigations, when he sent to ask about you. Did they think you were a heretic?”

  I’m not ready to talk about all that yet.

  “But you’re home now, never fret,” says Fays, the perceptive woman-child. “Just be glad it’s over. It will never happen again.”

  “Jerome is home,” says Alazaïs. “You’ll find him at the farm. Waiting for you, I expect, though we didn’t none of us know when you’d get out. Or even if you would. If they would release you or burn you. But they’ve let you go, you’re cleared.”

  We laugh and laugh. Alazaïs is crouched down, blowing on the coals.

  “Gaillard is a shepherd.” She offers up the news as if on a banquet plate. “With Belleperche. He’s gone as far across the mountains as into Aragon. He’s grown that strong. We won’t see him from one year to the next,” she continues, still down on her knees at the flames. “One moment a little boy, and the next he’s gone.”

  “And Domergue?”

  “He’s getting older. But he put in the crops again. Thank God for two strong sons to help.”

  I wash again in the stableyard with two buckets of warm water, heated on the fire. Alazaïs grabs up my clothes.

  “I want to get on home,” I protest.

  “You’ll find him waiting for you,” she says. “But no point going like that, looking like a hag. I’ll loan you my other dress and a cloth for your head.”

  “What dress?”

  “My blue one.”

  “Your good one? Your Sunday dress?”

  “You can return it tomorrow, when you’ve washed your gown properly. Be careful of it, that’s all. I’ll need it for this Sunday.”

  “Is he all right?” I hardly dare to ask.

  “He was in prison only for one week. Not months like you.” She sits me in the sun between her knees, now dressed in her clean shift. She brushes and dries my hair. Grooming for lice. Snapping them between her fingernails. How fine it feels, her strong fingers stroking my scalp, my temples, as Baiona used to do. I hold her knees and lean back sweetly on her chest, while she tells the local gossip, and her hands caress my head, massage my scalp, filling me with serenity. So-and-so has hurt himself and the younger boy, Martin, wants to marry a town girl, but Alazaïs doesn’t like the girl’s family. Annie, the woman in the dell, has died. And of course she tells me about Jerome, imprisoned and immediately released.

  “How?” I ask. “Why did they let him go?”

  “We bought his liberty.”

  “Bought it?”

  “We mortgaged our farm for him,” she says. “It took three hundred livres, but he’s free.”

  “Three hundred! That’s the income of the lord!” I am shocked. Then I reconsider: “What made you think of that? How clever!” I pat her knees in applause and try to turn around to see her lovely, wrinkled face.

  “Don’t move. Even the Inquisitors need money,” she says cynically. “The problem is, now he has to pay it off. So don’t think all is well: he’s signed over his farm to us, in pledge. It’s just a business deal. And we’ll be the richer for it in the end, I expect. A good deed with a good outcome. He’ll be in debt till his death, and then the farm is ours.”

  I say nothing.

  “Jerome’s the one who got you freed. He petitioned the papal legate in Toulouse. He said if you’d been at Montségur, then you had been exonerated once and could not be arrested for the same crime.”

  “And did they find my name in the records?”

  “Well, actually, they did not. There was a problem with the records. But we testified that you were” (circling her temple with one finger) “you know, ‘off.’ He said if you were not there, then you could not legally be arrested. They agreed a mistake had been made. More money passing hands, I presume. I don’t know how he expects to pay it all.”

  Dusk is falling. I can contain myself no more. I leap to my feet.

  “I’m going now,” I say with a laugh. “You understand.”

  She laughs too, embracing me. “I’ll walk you to the stablegate.”

  “Say hello to Domergue. We’ll come see you soon.”

  “Dear Jeanne. It’s good to have you back.”

  I climb the last two miles. Giving thanks to God, who worked it out, and to my Lord Jesus Christ, who is walking beside me, climbing humbly at my side. I feel the golden, friendly presence. He is smiling, delighted with me. And someone else is up ahead, in white.

  I think tomorrow we shall pack up, Jerome and I. We shall take the treasure from the cave and pay off our debts, or else we’ll travel into Lombardy and give it to the Friends of God. Or perhaps we’ll just stay on the farm, marry, and pay off our mortgage to the Domergues, year by slow year, in order not to arouse suspicion. Perhaps we’ll leave most of the treasure in the cave, in case it’s needed by the Friends of God. Because I want to tell Jerome about the real treasure, which is the treasure in our hearts. I want to tell him about God’s love.

  I am leaping up the hillside, my body working like a spring, and there is the farm. I see it shining in the light. The Light! And there is William waving to me! And Baiona calling! Roland-Pierre! I shade my eyes with my hand, because I cannot see for the white, the brilliance of the Light!

  “Let go the ropes.” The Inquisitor stepped forward to the rack. The woman’s form had suddenly gone slack. He disliked this work—the darkness of this underground chamber, the black heat that bellowed from the fireplace, the multiplicity of ropes and wooden pegs, the nail-studded metal coffins in which to enclose a victim, the wheel and rack and red-hot iron headbands, the spokes that gouged out eyes, the tongs that twisted limbs or pulled out fingernails. Amidst the bleeding screams, he sometimes felt he could hardly breathe; yet at the same time, he experienced an animal excitement. This work was done in the name of the most righteous service of Jesus Christ, the Lord of love, who wanted the heretics to repent, who wanted the taint removed from Mother Church.

  He grimaced angrily.

  “She’s died.”

  “Fool! We’re not supposed to kill them on the rack. Unstrap her quick. Revive her.”

  “She’s only a heretic.”

  “She never confessed. For all we know she was a good Catholic, now dead without the sacraments.”

  “It’s not my fault, your honor.”

  “You’re supposed to pay attention to your work.”

  “I hardly twisted the ropes. She was gone before I even began.”

  “She never confessed. Well, give the body to the family.” The Inquisitor began to strip his gloves. “Have someone notify them. It’s not our business.”

  He wiped his han
ds on his clean handkerchief and turned to mount the stairs.

  THIRTY-THREE

  They found him sitting in the dark, hands dangling between his knees, and on his lap her colorless old woolen cloak.

  “Why, Jerome, whatever is the matter?” Alazaïs asked, bustling into the little room. “Why are you just sitting here, the fire gone out, nothing done?”

  Domergue followed slowly. He looked about him with bovine, sturdy patience while his wife twisted here, there, talking all the time.

  “Why, how you’ve let it go!” she exclaimed. “Are you sick? Look at the dust everywhere, the animals outside untended in the yard. You haven’t taken the sheep to pasture, or the pony. Here you are, sitting in the dark when it’s God’s good sunlight out of doors and things to be done.”

  She found the flint. “I’ll bet you haven’t eaten either. No fire to cook with. No wood to build a fire. Well, speak up, man. What’s bothering you? Domergue, bring in some wood,” she commanded. “The least we can do is light the fire, give the poor man some food. You’d think you were a child, sitting in the dark, alone.”

  Jerome cast an anguished look at her and dropped his eyes.

  “Did you hear me, man?” she said. “Get up, now. Move about.”

  “She’s dead.”

  “Ah, dead,” repeated Domergue from the doorway. He abandoned his chore and seated himself beside Jerome, patting his knee with one hand.

  Alazaïs stared at the two men, her hands on her hips. “She was a heretic.” She spat out the words. “She only got what she deserved.”

  “I told them,” said Jerome, and when he looked up they could see tears standing in his eyes. His fingers plucked the woolen cape. “I said she was a heretic.”

  “Well, and didn’t they torture you?” asked Domergue quietly. “What do you expect? Didn’t they nearly tear your shoulder out?”

  He rubbed his shoulder with a puzzled expression, the mild, bewildered disbelief of a child. Two tears coursed slowly down his weathered, sun-grooved cheek.

  “I can’t move it anymore.” He looked over at Domergue in confusion and then up at Alazaïs, standing over them. “I told them she knew the heretics. I told them she knew about the treasure.”

  Alazaïs and Domergue exchanged a look.

  “What treasure?” asked Alazaïs.

  “The Cathar treasure. The treasure of Montségur. She knew where it was hid.”

  “She knew where the treasure was?” Alazaïs sank down onto the other bench with a grunt.

  “We were going to go get it. We talked and talked about it. She’d helped hide it. We were going to be married, and then we were going to ask you to care for our animals for a month, while we went for the treasure. We planned to tell everyone the trip was a pilgrimage. She said we would have to spend the money thriftily. She wanted to share it with you.”

  “With us?”

  “She loved you. She said she wanted us all to share in the good fortune. She wanted to keep some of the treasure for us and give some to your family; then we’d carry the rest to Lombardy, to give to the Friends of God. It belonged to them. She said she’d take a little bit for us, for you, and take the rest to them,” he repeated.

  “No!” said Alazaïs, rising violently. “She was a witch. We watched how she bewitched you. She had her claws in you. You couldn’t see another woman, not even my own daughter Fays, who would have made a proper wife for you soon. Then she came along and you took her right into your house.”

  She leaned down, hissing in his face. “She was a witch, with her herbs and deadly potions. She killed our Bernadette. Her, with her hands on my poor sick children’s heads and murmuring her chants and spells. She borrowed my headdress, no telling what charms she was putting into that.”

  Jerome’s jaw dropped. “It was you that turned her in?”

  “Enchantments, that was what she did. Look at her, an old woman, and still appearing beautiful.”

  “Did she really know where the treasure was hidden?” asked Domergue thickly. “She would have shared with us?”

  Jerome nodded.

  “Well, we can still get it then,” said Alazaïs. “We can do what she wanted done with it. Where’s the treasure then?”

  “She wouldn’t tell me. She was afraid of just what happened: that I’d be arrested and say more than I meant to.”

  “Then she truly was a heretic,” said Alazaïs. “She wouldn’t have known where it was if she weren’t a heretic.” She looked wildly from her husband to Jerome. “And what good would it have done us, having the goods of heretics? Tainting us. What good would the treasure have done? Got us all killed, I suppose.”

  Domergue stood up. “Be quiet, woman.”

  She gasped.

  “Jerome.” He let one hand fall on the other man’s arm.

  “I miss her. I don’t even have anything good that belonged to her. She didn’t own a thing of any value. This cloak is all I have.” He held it to his face. “It still carries her scent. Do you want to smell it?”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “There was no treasure!” Alazaïs cried passionately. “It was just another lie. She was a heretic, I tell you. She deserved to be turned in. There was no treasure, mark my words. There is no treasure. She’d not have shown you anything. Not ever.”

  EPILOGUE

  Ninety years later, a violent storm uprooted the huge beech tree on the hill. Its shallow roots tore out of the soggy, stony earth, and the tree collapsed with a thunderous roar, upending the other trees and brush nearby. The drenching rain continued to fall.

  In the roots a green oilskin packet could be seen. The green waterproof covering, clogged with mud, opened under the slow pressure of the rain, and if anyone had been about he could have picked up a hard brown leather case, held by a tarnished silver clasp so black it looked like iron, But no one was about anymore: the Domergue farm had been abandoned years before to briars and scrub-brush, as had Jerome’s as well as the little church (its roof caved in); and no one lived any longer in so remote a spot.

  The leather binding of the Holy Gospel bent and warped under the wet rain, exposing the parchment pages with their delicate black lettering, each character inked by someone’s patient hand. The water splashed on the calfskin, blurring the mud-splattered pages. Each chapter opened with a capital letter painted with gold, ruby, lapis lazuli, and other precious minerals in an elaborate embroidery of fanciful animals, leaves, flowers and of tiny figures shown at play or prayer. This—the Word of God, written in the local tongue—was a treasure so valuable and so dangerous that to own it could mean death. Slowly the pages curled and tore. The book disintegrated in the sun and snow and mud.

  Bibliography

  Aué, Michèle. Décourvrir: Le Pays Cathare. Vic-en-Bigorre: MSM, 1992.

  “Les Cathares: La Croisade contre le Languedoc.” Historia Special no. 373 (1977): 1–123.

  Cherry, John. Medieval Crafts: A Book of Days. London: Thames & Hudson, 1993.

  Davis, R.H.C. The Medieval Warhorse. London: Thames & Hudson, 1989.

  Duvernoy, Jean. La Religion des Cathares: Le Catharisme. Bibliotheque Historique. Toulouse: Privat, 1989.

  Ennen, Edith. The Medieval Woman. Translated by Edmund Jephcott. Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, 1989.

  Fox, Sally, ed. The Medieval Woman: An Illuminated Book of Days. Boston: Little, Brown, 1985.

  “Historia Occitanie: Le Drame Cathare.” Historama 570 (1994): 6–39.

  Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel. Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error. Translated by Barbara Bray. New York: Vintage Books, 1979.

  Manchester, William. A World Lit Only by Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance: Portrait of an Age. Boston: Little, Brown, 1993.

  Nelli, René. La Vie Quotidienne des Cathares du Languedoc au XIIIe Siècle. Paris: Hachette, 1969.

  Oldenbourg, Zoe. Massacre at Montségur: A History of the Albigensian Crusade. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1961.

  Roquebert, Michel. Mourir à Montségur:
L’Épopée Cathare. Toulouse: Privat, 1989.

  Rouquette, Yves. Cathars. Translated and adapted by Roer Depledge. Toulouse: Loubatieres, 1992.

  Tannahill, Reay. Food in History. New York: Stein & Day, 1973.

  Weis, René. The Yellow Cross: The Story of the Last Cathars 1290–1329. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001.

  READER’S GUIDE TO

  The Treasure of Montségur

  by Sophy Burnham

  PLOT SUMMARY

  The year is 1209: a baby girl, dressed in a white silk dress strewn with pearls, is found in a meadow outside the smoking city of Béziers, where 20,000 people have just been massacred. Adopted by Lady Esclarmonde, the fiery Jeanne is educated in the ways of the Cathars—the “pure ones,” pacifist, vegetarian, chaste followers of Christ. But war is raging, and the Inquisition is charged with exterminating the Church of Love. It is a time of terror, with neighbor pitted against neighbor, and religious passions running high, a time of suspicion, burnings, and systematic genocide. Against this turbulent background Jeanne of Béziers finds herself embroiled in the resistance, fighting for freedom alongside William, the man whom she loves—and who is married to her best friend.

  Trapped with William and more than 200 Cathars at the fortress of Montségur, Jeanne is asked to sacrifice her convictions for the security of the Cathar legacy. As the only person who can save the legendary Cathar treasure, Jeanne is propelled on a journey through the dark days of the Inquisition, eventually to a place where she discovers the true treasure of Montségur and her own destiny in keeping it alive.

  This stunning novel of the Cathars, populated with real historical figures and accurate in its historical details, tells Jeanne’s story of sexual passion, intrigue, mystery and the search for love and God. This extraordinary woman will linger with you long after the novel’s haunting conclusion.

  SOPHY BURNHAM ON WRITING

  The Treasure of Montségur