Siege Perilous

by E. D. Debirmingham

  “I think you have a cup, and that it is of great power, and that I am its intended bearer,” he said. “There. I have said it as clearly as I could.”

  “And now I have heard you. And I am telling you, I do not have such an object, and if I did, I would not yield it up just because you ask me for it.”

  “And now I have heard you, but I do not believe you.”

  “Well, as I said, I am not trustworthy,” she said. She wished she could stand up and leave without drawing attention to the cup. It was behind her, between her clothing and her cloak, warming her; if she reached with her left hand around her right-hand side, under the cloak, she could grasp it, but in pulling it out she would expose it to Percival. “If you do not mind, I would like to be left in peace now to meditate and pray a bit.”

  “How does a Binder pray?” asked Percival.

  “Not at all like a renegade does,” said Ocyrhoe. “That also is a secret that I carry. I will willingly divulge it to you, but later, not now.”

  “Well enough, God’s evening to you then,” he said, suddenly very ordinary and agreeable. He made the slightest bow in her direction—not mockingly, but genuinely, like a knight from a romantic poem taking leave of a lady. Then he pointed at her. “You have potent meditations, my friend. The snow has melted in a circle all around you.” She looked down. Yes, she was now sitting on her mantle in the mud. Percival walked slowly back up the slope in the moonlight.

  She waited until he had actually re-entered the fortress, fearful that the light from the cup would draw his eye back down the slope toward her. Then she grabbed the cup, holding it against her chest, scrambled to her feet, and scuttled down the slope, through the gate, and back into Rixenda’s cottage. She shoved the cup into the straw of her bed and covered it with the thin wool blanket she’d had around her shoulders. Then just to be safe, she doubled the blanket and put her thin pillow over the whole thing.

  CHAPTER 25:

  FATHER SINIBALDO

  Dietrich was in his tent with his fellow Livonians, huddled around a lamp-lit camp table. Between his shift and his tunic, one end resting on his upper lap and the rest leaning against his stomach, was a flat, fire-warmed piece of limestone. His men had similar warmers. They had just eaten. They were used to the swill that passed as food here, more than the local soldiers were, and so they were experiencing a level of contentment shared by nobody else in the army.

  Except possibly Hugue de Arcis and the Archbishop of Narbonne, and those elite members of the French corps, all of whom had taken over the comfortable village with its tight, little houses. They had long depleted the stores of grain and dried fruits, but the two crusading leaders and their men also had money and manpower to scout for food, which the rest of the army would never even know about. Dietrich and his brothers should have been part of that elite insider group. He did not mind the hardships—in fact he felt a measure of superiority that he and his men were comfortable in a setting that would probably reduce the frail, overprivileged archbishop and bloated seneschal to shivering tears. But on principle it still rankled that his position as the Pope’s agent was completely disregarded.

  Outside, the camp was settling down to sleep. Only a few dozen men remained up on the pog overnight, just enough to load and spring the trebuchet, and to man the watchtower. But the camp was quieter now that there was productive and often exhaustive work to be done. Even the local soldiers were excited at the prospect of bursting open the gate of the untouchable fortress of Montségur. Their perception of feudal duty shifted gracefully from odious to titillating. They slept well, very well, at night.

  So the camp was quiet. This meant that any outside noise was disproportionately loud. Like the grumbling and the footsteps that were coming down the slushy avenue. There was no particular reason to think the footsteps would stop at their tent, and yet somehow Dietrich knew they would.

  A scout opened the flap without asking permission, and stuck his head in. He was wearing Hugue’s colors. “A party has come to the village looking for you,” he said gruffly. “Nobody we know. Will you receive ‘em?”

  No doubt more of his Livonian brothers, but why they would need to seek him out here…unless something nefarious was happening farther north. “Let them come,” he said.

  “Tell your friends not to come loitering at the general’s camp,” the fellow said blandly, as he gestured the newcomers into the tent.

  A tall, cloaked figure, his hood shadowing his face, entered first, with three stocky men behind him. They were all dressed in the muted, generic dress of winter travelers. The three companions, from their stance, were clearly soldiers, but Dietrich did not recognize their faces. The taller figure did not hold himself like a fighter.

  “Thank you,” Dietrich said tersely to the Frenchman, who left without further comment. He looked at the newcomers. “Welcome to the Livonian brotherhood,” he said carefully. “Whom do we have the honor of receiving?”

  “I require a word alone with the Heermeister,” said the hooded figure. “Tell the others to leave.”

  Dietrich exchanged looks with his men. “May I ask the need for secrecy? These are my brothers, ultimately. I will not keep them from my counsel.”

  “Determine that when you have heard my news. I bring a message from Rome and it is for your ears only.”

  Dietrich nodded to the other knights. “Excuse us, brothers. This is a fine time for you to pay your final evening respects to the latrines.”

  The other knights, accustomed to Dietrich, filed out without comment.

  The tall man reached up with two long-fingered, elegant hands, and pulled back his hood to reveal a hawklike face. Dietrich recognized the man at once. He immediately went down on one knee. “Your Holiness! What are you doing here?”

  “The angel. With the cup.”

  That made no sense. “What about it, Your Holiness?”

  “It’s why I am here,” said Innocent severely. He unpinned his cloak and let it slide off his shoulders, stepping away from it as one of his bodyguards caught it and draped it ceremoniously over his arm. Beneath the cloak, Innocent was dressed as a priest.

  “You will call me Father Sinibaldo during my stay here,” he informed Dietrich. “Nobody is to know me unless I choose to reveal myself to them.”

  “Yes Your H…Father. May I ask why the story of the girl with the cup has brought the Father to Montségur?”

  “I do not have time to tell the story twice. Come with me while I explain to the archbishop.”

  “Your…Father…you will have a hard time gaining access to His Eminence if you are merely a priest.”

  “Do you think so?” asked Pope Innocent loftily. “Come and watch. You stay here,” he said to his three guards. Then he turned and without ceremony let himself out of the tent.

  Dietrich hurried to follow after him in the cold dark alley between tents. “Will he not recognize you, Father?” he asked.

  “I do not know that we have ever met in person, and if we did it was years ago, before I was even a cardinal,” said Innocent, walking briskly through the slush. “I am confident he will not know me.”

  “How did…how did you get here?” Dietrich demanded, astounded by this development. His Holiness’s stride was so long and brisk, Dietrich was almost jogging to keep up with him.

  “The same way most people do. It took longer than it should have, because we had to avoid areas where I might be recognized. I do not care for the hardships of a common priest. The insults to my person since I left the Lateran Palace are appalling, worse than my captivity in the Septizodium, and would have been even worse if I were a layman. You must live a demeaning life indeed, Dietrich, if you are satisfied with living in a tent.”

  “I am not satisfied,” Dietrich said quickly, gruffly. “But I am duty-bound to His Holiness to maintain a presence here, and this is the only way to do it.”

 
“Not when I’ve finished with them,” Innocent muttered, and turned a muddy corner in the tent-avenue so that he entered the village. A Carcassonne guard stood at the berm, but Sinibaldo disregarded him so entirely the man seemed to have been gagged—he opened his mouth to speak but no sound came out, only the vapor of his breath; he reached an arm to restrain the priest but seemed frozen in place. Sinibaldo di Fieschi kept walking. Having only been here an hour, and having passed through the army camp only once, he had already memorized its layout. Without hesitating he walked straight to the cottage that housed the Archbishop of Narbonne.

  He rapped hard on the door, then pushed it open without waiting. It was well lit within, although the torches were smoking and making a stench. The last time Dietrich had been in here, everything had been lit by candlelight. They had run out of candles by now.

  Without waiting for a response, Innocent entered. Immediately, as Dietrich watched from the threshold, he was surrounded by four of the bishop’s guard, all with knives drawn and held threateningly toward him. Innocent made a dismissive gesture and walked past them; they watched him in astonishment as he approached the archbishop, who sat on a chair (a real chair, with a back and a cushion, something unheard of in the army tents) examining papers on a lap desk.

  Dietrich stepped into the house. Both more tentative and more obviously martial than the first intruder, he was accosted by the guards. He quickly held up his empty hands to show he meant no harm, and he did not attempt to move in beyond the doorframe. He could not take his eyes away from Father Sinibaldo. Even from the back, dressed in simple priest’s vestments, the man had a majestic energy of entitlement that made it impossible to resist him.

  Archbishop Pierre Amelii looked up in astonishment, his jaw dropping slack and his eyes widening enough to show the whites around the pupils.

  “Do not be alarmed. I am a friend. I have been sent from Rome,” Father Sinibaldo said briskly. “Put down your work and hear my message. Dietrich, close the door.”

  The archbishop blinked, and Father Sinibaldo impatiently lifted the desk off Pierre Amelii’s lap, turned on his heel and handed it to one of the guards as if that was the purpose of the guard’s lurking presence. The guard, not expecting this, reflexively sheathed his knife so that he could receive the burden. Sinibaldo immediately turned back to His Eminence and continued without interruption. “Where is Count Raimondo of Toulouse? I have looked all around the camp and see no evidence of his presence. Is he not supposed to be among those fighting these heretics? What do you suppose can account for his absence?”

  “I have excommunicated him,” said the archbishop, with a concerted display of self-importance, trying to overcome his startlement at being confronted so confidently by a mere priest.

  “Well the Pope hasn’t,” said Father Sinibaldo. “Get his arse here from Toulouse and force him to help us. Meanwhile, if we cannot defeat these heretics, we must at least defame them, and immediately, so that they cease to have such a romantic hold on the minds and hearts of the people of Occitania. You do see the necessity of that, do you not?” He gave the archbishop a blistering look.

  “Yes, but…no, but…well, yes, it would be ideal, but it is highly unlikely that could happen given the depth of the history between—” he stammered.

  “As you know,” Father Sinibaldo continued, as if the archbishop had not spoken, “it is His Holiness’s desire to promote the sacrament of Holy Communion.” The briefest pause, and then, with a soupcon of condescending concern, “You did know that, didn’t you? You are all paying attention to the Mother Church out here in the hinterlands, are you not?”

  Pierre of Amelii was flabbergasted. His face was red with anger, but the stranger’s intensity and directness seemed to rob him of the will to confront him. “Yes, of course,” he said hotly. “Of course we are aware of His Holiness’s desire to promote the sacrament of Holy Communion.”

  “Excellent! Do you know why he wishes it?”

  “I do not see how that—”

  “So you don’t know why. I shall tell you. It’s one of the reasons he required me to come to you. Listen, so that if you are ever in the presence of His Holiness and you are questioned, you can answer with confidence. First, the ritual of communion is in itself a spiritually potent ceremony. To eat the body and blood of Christ is an act of dazzling and transformative ritual.”

  “Yes of course,” said the archbishop, relieved he could finally comment on a matter with confidence.

  “But more than that,” continued Father Sinibaldo, “it is an excellent way of differentiating the Roman Church from the Eastern Church and all the heretical masses. The more ubiquitous and central the sacrament becomes in our mass, the more it helps us to notice those who avoid partaking of it. Promoting the sacrament of Holy Communion helps us to know, to shepherd, and to control our flocks. You’ll agree that is an excellent thing?”

  He had the archbishop pinned to his chair with his gaze alone. “I do,” the archbishop said, as if giving way under torture, as if all he wanted was to be released from Father Sinibaldo’s intense, relentless attention.

  “I am glad you agree with His Holiness on that. The question then becomes a matter of how best to promote the sacrament. Do you know the poems about the quest for the Holy Grail?”

  Again, bug-eyed confusion overwhelmed the old man’s face. “What does that have to do with—”

  “Surely here in the Languedoc all those stories are familiar to you, no?”

  This time when Father Sinibaldo paused, it was with the energy of a man actually wanting to hear a response. After a troubled moment, Peter of Amelii gave him one.

  “Of course we are familiar with the troubadour works. But what has that to do with the Church? These are heathenish tales of romance and fancy, and some versions of them flirt uncomfortably with pagan elements.”

  “You say they are heathenish?” said Father Sinibaldo, like a boxer about to challenge an opponent to a fight. “The Holy Father says it is all a matter of presentation.”

  “What does that mean, my son?” asked the archbishop, struggling to remind himself that he was the superior here.

  “If those stories are told in the proper way, from the right perspective and with the right details, they will enhance the prestige of the sacrament of communion. The masses are all enamored with the image of a special chalice that has magical powers because of the fairy world or some such nonsense. If we can coax the masses to associate that chalice with the one priests use in church, we will suddenly have a revivification of interest in observing holy communion. Every grail in every church can be associated with the Holy Grail of the troubadours. Isn’t that clever? Take a moment, think about it.”

  “Er…yes, I do not need a moment, I can see what you are saying, the only question is how to coax people to associate the troubadours’ grail with a mass chalice.”

  “Are troubadours the only ones allowed to tell stories?” demanded the priest. “We, the Church, tell the stories, we promote the poems, and our apparent regard for them will make them seem innately tied to Christian ritual. There is very little work involved.”

  “It’s a very interesting idea,” said Pierre Amelii, looking exhausted but trying to seem lively. “I would be honored to discuss this idea in greater detail with His Holiness when the time is right, but first we must attend to this crusade ahead of us.”

  “Do not assume the two are not connected, Your Eminence,” said Father Sinibaldo.

  The archbishop seemed to physically get smaller. “How rash of me,” he said, sounding enervated.

  “Wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing if I told you that there really is such a grail?”

  For a moment the bishop looked terrified, then confused. “You mean…do you mean the chalice in the troubadour’s poem, or the original cup that Our Lord used at the Last Supper?”

  “What does it matter? I am simply saying th
ere is a magical grail.”

  The Archbishop of Narbonne pursed his lips together worriedly. He began to speak, then stopped himself, looked so confused that he appeared nearly to be in pain, and then ventured, “Well the poems aren’t Christian. There’s nothing to suggest that the knights are seeking the cup from Christ’s hand, so if you’re saying that the chalice in the poem really exists, then pardon my slow-wittedness, but I don’t see why that should be of any interest to the Church.”

  Father Sinibaldo grimaced a moment. Dietrich wished he knew what was going on behind those cold, grey eyes.

  “No of course not,” he said. Dietrich instinctively felt that His Holiness made a snap decision. “I am referring to the cup of Christ from the last supper.”

  “You are saying that it really exists?” And here the archbishop’s aging, tired face suddenly began to beam with hope.

  “Yes, and more than that, I am informing you that these heretics have taken possession of it and wish to keep it from the world.”

  His Eminence collapsed against the back of his chair. “What?” he demanded breathlessly.

  “They do not want it for themselves, clearly, for they do not practice the sacrament, and worldly things have no meaning to them. They have stolen a treasure of the Church and are using it for their own dark purposes.”

  “How do you know this? You must tell me how you know this!” said the bishop.

  “I have seen it in Rome. I know its power. That’s why His Holiness chose me to pursue it here. I know how it got from there to here. I know it is up there.”

  “Yes!” said Pierre of Amelii. “Yes, my son, you’re right! And they are using the power of the grail for perverse gain to their own heresies—they used it to seduce one of our most stalwart local soldiers to defect to them!”