Siege Perilous

by E. D. Debirmingham

  “Please trust my judgment. Do you remember the effect it had upon your nephew?”

  “That was his own imagination getting the better of him in the aftermath of your throwing yourself through a window.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” Ocyrhoe assured her. “I’m telling you it was the cup. But it isn’t always beneficent that way. I’m begging you not to tell anyone about it, lest they take it from me by force.”

  “Nobody is going to force anyone into anything,” said Rixenda, clipped. “The most force they would use would be to try to shame you from holding something back from the common good.”

  “It is not for the common good for the cup to leave here,” Ocyrhoe said firmly. “Nor for anyone else to know about it.”

  Rixenda spread her hands in resignation. “I will not gainsay you. But I will rejoice if you change your mind on this. And the Credents may yet come through here seeking objects.”

  “Why would they look here?” Ocyrhoe said. “Among the Perfecti? None of you own anything. Why would anyone bother looking through your huts?”

  “We use objects in the process of living,” Rixenda pointed out. “We are not attached to them, so we do not think of them as having value, but sometimes they do—brooches to keep cloaks closed, or objects from our trades, like gold and diamonds that are ground into medicines. Someone is likely to sweep through to see if we’ve been careless. Or corrupt. Or fearful. Somebody might be hoarding something, in fear of worse catastrophe to come, and might secretly disagree with the bishop that now is the time to yield all up.”

  “I’ll hide it,” said Ocyrhoe.

  Children self-importantly held up oil-drenched torches, flooding the courtyard with light. Most of the community gathered around two mounds in the middle of the courtyard, the children and some of the servants outright gawking at the wealth. Two large satchels sat agape, waiting for the coins, plate, jewelry, and other valuable objects. Most of it, Percival saw, was actual money. He looked for a cup in the valuable tumble of objects but could not find one.

  When he’d questioned Vidal a week or so earlier, Vidal had been unequivocal—there had been a chalice. It had been brandished by a smallish, female angel. Never mind that the Good Ones held no truck with angels.

  That night, Percival’s dreams had been full of Ocyrhoe. She was not dressed in her usual rags, however, but in radiant garments. She had held out her hand, offering him something he could not make out because it emanated such intense, blue-white light that the object itself was invisible. This was the clearest dream he had had since childhood.

  Now, a woolen wrap clutched around his shoulders, he perused the pile very carefully. He could not walk right up to it and sift through it, but he managed to scrutinize it fairly thoroughly. There were more coins by far than he’d ever seen amassed anywhere, ever, in his life. In addition, there was no small amount of jewelry—necklaces, chains, brooches, rings, hair-pins, belt buckles—and small decorative statues, and silver and gold plate. When Percival thought of great mounds of valuables, his inner eye instinctively saw religious images, icons, and paraphernalia, but there was none of that here.

  Directly across from him he saw Ocyrhoe standing with the youth, Ferenc, still covered with blood and seemingly shaken by his own survival. They were surveying the treasure as intensely as he was—as intensely as everyone was, except the Good Ones.

  “I was surprised Raphael put the emperor’s money into the pile,” said Ocyrhoe. “He does not believe you should even be here.”

  “He understands there is a need for help, although he disagrees with what kind. But the sooner help arrives, the sooner he can quit this place with a clean conscience,” said Ferenc.

  They watched, shivering together in the moon-bright, torchlit night, as the two satchels were bundled up. Matheus and Peire Bonnet had been charged with getting the treasury down the mountain to a secret spot; they were working with a few other Credents to create packs that would distribute the weight safely across their shoulders, so that each could carry half the weight without hurting themselves.

  “If they can hire mercenaries, what do you think it will accomplish?” asked Ferenc. He rubbed his hands together for warmth, wishing he had not lost his gloves.

  “I think they want the newcomers to attack the army down there on its own level, create a new front, and then have to divert resources away from the siege,” said Ocyrhoe. “Also, I bet if the invading army is distressed too far—in this weather, after so many months, when most of them never cared much for this assignment in the first place—there are likely to be many turncoats against the French.”

  Ferenc considered this. “So it is not just an act of desperation.”

  “No, in some ways it may bring a happier conclusion than simply fending off the French in the hopes they will give up and wander back to France. That’s why Peire-Roger rated it more urgent than retaking the watchtower. This way, the French may actually have to retreat, or even surrender. Then the local lords might get their lands back.” She spoke matter-of-factly, with a weary pragmatism extraordinarily unlike the child he had met two years ago in Rome.

  “What will you do when it’s all over?” he asked, and then felt awkward for having asked.

  Ocyrhoe gave him a secretive smile. “Why do you want to know?”

  He shrugged uncomfortably. “Just curious. We will head back to Frederick’s…”

  “I will go with you!” she said abruptly.

  “…with Percival,” he finished.

  “Oh,” she said, frowning. “Perhaps not, then.”

  “Why? What’s wrong with Percival?”

  She avoided his look. “He is a bit peculiar,” she said. “I’m not at ease around him.”

  “Peculiar how?” asked Ferenc. “Raphael loves him dearly, but has said he worries his fancies will lead him to ruin.”

  She shrugged and began to fidget with her lock of knotted hair. “Just an odd one, that’s all. Nothing in particular.”

  “Such an odd one that you would give up going back to Frederick’s court with me, just to avoid him.”

  “Oh,” she said, twisting the tress around her finger like a little girl. “Hmm. I would have to think about that.”

  A pause.

  “Raphael says Percival suffers from hallucinations.”

  A pause.

  “Perhaps,” said Ocyrhoe.

  A pause.

  “Not unlike Father Rodrigo,” added Ferenc quietly. He understood her fear of madmen; the last one they’d both known had very nearly murdered her.

  A pause. Ocyrhoe nodded.

  “That is the heart of it,” she said.

  “He’s not like that. Raphael would not have agreed to this if he thought Percival was harmful.”

  “Rodrigo wasn’t harmful either,” said Ocyrhoe unhappily. “Things change. We thought the French army was not terribly harmful until last night.” She gestured toward the two heavy piles of valuables and coins before them. “Now look at this. Once they take this away, there will be nothing left here. If there is a new emergency, they will have no resources left to attend to it.”

  “They have good fighters,” said Ferenc.

  She shook her head. “How do you know they’re any good? You saw five good fighters killed in a few moments. Besides, these men are outnumbered one to a hundred,” she said. “They are not good enough to kill one hundred enemies each. This money—I hate to think it, I never valued money in my life—this is their best protection, and they are about to entrust it all to strangers.”

  “In exchange for an army,” Ferenc pointed out. Ocyrhoe made a noncommittal gesture and blew into her cupped hands to warm them. “Ocyrhoe, you are fretting about them as if they were children. They have been dealing with persecution since before we were born.”

  Ocyrhoe shook her head, but not in disagreement; it was more an expression of
helplessness. “This has been my home, these people have been family, I’ve felt protected. Do you know how desperately I needed that?”

  “I can imagine,” Ferenc said carefully.

  “So of course I am worried. It is a selfish worry.” She gestured across the circle of gawkers, toward Percival. He was moving deosil around the circle, nearing them. “When I avoid his strangeness, that is also a selfish worry.”

  “If you come back with us to Frederick’s, I promise to protect you from him,” Ferenc said indulgently, trying to lighten the mood.

  Percival was a quarter of the way around the torchlit circle, his eyes on the people around him to avoid walking into someone. Then he raised his head and stared straight at Ocyrhoe with a queer expression in the uneven light, almost beseeching. Ferenc shivered.

  “All right then,” said Ocyrhoe, her look trapped in Percival’s. “Protect me. Starting now.”

  Percival approached them, wishing he did not have to interrupt. They seemed so content in each other’s presence, even while their faces puckered with concern at what they witnessed. But he had to ask her. He had to know.

  He caught her eye and kept it as he circled around toward them. Ferenc moved in front of her, not quite hiding her, but shielding; Percival regretted making her unhappy, but this was much more important than mere human comfort. Besides, if she really understood, she would know she had nothing to fear from him. He wanted her help to do the Virgin’s bidding.

  Soon he was standing before them. “Good morning,” he said. It was almost morning; beyond the torches and lamps, the depth of night was flattening to dawning grey.

  “Good morning,” they both replied, guardedly.

  “Ocyrhoe, my sister, may I speak alone with you a moment?”

  They glanced at each other, then both looked back at him. “Ocyrhoe has no secrets from me,” said Ferenc. “You may speak to her in my company.”

  “Is this true?” Percival asked her in a confiding tone suggesting he believed it was not true.

  “Yes. What is it?” Ocyrhoe asked brusquely, folding her skinny arms across her skinny torso and shivering in the chill dawn air. It was that time of day when exhaustion filled everyone’s pores.

  “I have been having visions,” Percival began gently.

  “I have heard about your visions,” Ocyrhoe said shortly, staring at the ground and moving a limestone pebble about with the toe of her boot.

  “I have been having them for a long time now. They seem to have brought me here, but for what reason, I cannot say. I thought it was to help protect these people, but they are now in need of far more protection than I can ever give them. So I think it is something else and I am trying to determine what it is.”

  “I wish you luck with that,” she said, fidgeting. She turned away from him, toward Ferenc. On reflex Percival reached toward her shoulder to turn her back, but as he did so, two things happened: Ferenc’s hand went to his knife hilt, and Peire Bonnet approached them, with an open, smiling face. “Brother Percival, Peire-Roger has asked you to do us the honor of accompanying my brother and myself down the mountain with the treasure.”

  “Gladly,” Percival said immediately. “Of course.” He had released his grip on Ocyrhoe’s shoulder; glancing toward her, he saw her hurry to Ferenc, who took her hand comfortingly as they met.

  “We will meet at sundown at the gate,” said Matheus. “Thank you.”

  “Who else is going?” asked Percival.

  “I volunteered,” said Vera, showing up from nowhere behind him. “Peire-Roger was having none of that.”

  “I am sorry he has insulted you,” said Percival. “I will happily tell him that your presence is a better surety of these men’s safety than even my own.”

  “I already volunteered you for that service,” Vera said. “He is not interested in hearing what you have to say for me.”

  Percival smiled at her and rested a hand on her shoulder. “I prophesy that he will come in time to value you as the warrior you are.”

  CHAPTER 23:

  TREBUCHET

  “Thank you, my son,” read the letter from His Holiness, which Dietrich held close to the flickering flame, “for alerting us to the possible presence of such insidious heretics within the ranks of our otherwise devout and Catholic troops. We are grateful for the presence of such wise and rational counsel as yours is, that will keep us informed of any suspicious developments. There is of course no need to alarm His Eminence Pierre Amelii nor any of the secular leaders of the army of this danger. Keep eyes alert and lips closed, but keep ink and parchment at hand to write to us if the need arises.”

  It was not the dramatic call to action that Dietrich had hoped for, but there was satisfaction still in knowing His Holiness relied on him—and would allow him to destroy the Shield-Brethren should the opportunity arise. It made up, somewhat, for the cold shoulders he was still treated to here, in the stark army tent at the foot of Montségur.

  The Gascon climbers had been his idea. He had found the old shepherd. The sudden surge in progress owed a tremendous amount to him, but Hugue and the archbishop refused to acknowledge that. He did not mind so much that they did not admit it publicly—he was used to stealth, preferred it in fact—but they would not admit it even to him, and that rankled.

  He was ignored as he watched the French troops enact another idea of his: disassembling the enormous, counterweighted trebuchet that had been so ineffective at the foot of the mountain. With the watchtower under their control, it would be safe now—if still disturbingly treacherous—to carry the timber around the mountain and use pulleys to haul it up the slope scaled by the Gascon climbers. Here it could be safely reassembled on the relatively level ground near the watchtower.

  Hugue had reluctantly acknowledged that the mountaintop itself might provide ammunition, that projectiles could be mined and shaped right out of the limestone. As could the bigger challenge: the ton of counterweight required to sling the rocks.

  “But it will take time to set up workshops to accomplish that,” he griped.

  “More time than it will take to starve out the Cathars, when half the countryside is feeding them?” asked Dietrich.

  “And the accuracy from such a distance—”

  “Trebuchets are built on wheels, my lord,” Dietrich said.

  “That is chiefly to assist in the efficacy of their action.”

  “But a wheeled object can be moved.”

  Hugue frowned at him as if Dietrich were a simpleton. “Wheel it where? It will be resting on the only level ground of the entire slope.”

  Dietrich’s eyes glittered. “You wheel it up the slope. And take the barbican.”

  Hugue’s eyes bulged wide. Dietrich felt a moment of satisfaction at having impressed the army leader—until the army leader burst out guffawing. “Push that unwieldy thing up a rocky slope on wheels the size of my boot? That’s absurd! What have you been drinking?”

  Nothing Dietrich said would sway him. The most Hugue would contemplate was the trebuchet hurling rocks from the distance of the watchtower. As of just after dawn, French and Gascon crossbow-men had already crowded into the tower, and were now shooting relentlessly up the slope at the wall-walks of Montségur, to prevent the heretics’ archers from shooting at the minions given the grim task of hauling half a ton of lumber, hardware, and mining equipment up the pog.

  A trebuchet, in essence, used a lever to exaggerate the work of an enormous slingshot. A triangular frame on a wheeled platform supported a long beam—attached asymmetrically on a pin—that see-sawed on the top of the frame. The shorter segment of the beam was ended with an enormous weight, a ton or more; this side was winched up and held up by a system of pulleys and pins. The longer, unweighted segment of the beam tilted nearly to the ground. Attached to the end of it was a long slingshot—the longer, the better—that lay on the ground. Resting in the slin
g was a rock or boulder.

  When the counterweight was released, it pulled its end of the beam hard and fast toward the ground—and so the other end of the beam jerked upward, raising the sling with a centripetal force that whipped the sling up and overhead and sent the stone soaring. This particular trebuchet supposedly had been designed by Bishop Durand of Albi. Dietrich found it odd, and somewhat distasteful, that a man of the church would seek credit for an instrument of warfare. But he found it even more distasteful that anyone would claim to have designed what was entirely generic in form; not one particular element of it seemed to have been re-envisioned.

  “Rixenda told us not to work together,” Ferenc said.

  Ocyrhoe made a dismissive gesture. “That was before the tower fell. Now it’s not safe to be out here but in pairs, and none of the women will scout with me. So I have to scout with a fellow, and better it be you than one of them, who would feel they were doing something wrong.”

  He liked her logic.

  The Perfecti who had abandoned the village in the dead of night had already decided to return to it, but Ocyrhoe did not rejoin Rixenda in her hut. She had left the cup there, in part because she was afraid of it now, and while she was not willing to let it go unchaperoned out into the world, neither did she want to be around it overmuch. She especially did not want to have to explain its presence here to Ferenc, who would probably think she had lost her wits for keeping it.

  It was wonderful to have Ferenc here—a friend, somebody from her life before, somebody near her own age who treated her like a confidante and not a peculiar outsider. It was calming to have his features, familiar and yet strange, in view.

  Not that she saw him much the day after the tower was taken. Once the treasure had been secreted down the mountain, he was dismissed to get some sleep, as he would be spending the rest of the day up on the wall with the knights and men-at-arms shooting at the watchtower.