‘I need your help.’
‘I am at your service.’ He threw down the towel, gave the mare a final rub of the muzzle and fed her a handful of hay. ‘May I ask what it is you wish of me?’
‘Father Marty is dying and wishes to take the consolamentum. He needs good Christians as witness.’
‘I would not describe myself as a good Christian.’
‘Neither would I. But you will just have to do.’
*
As he followed her up the slope he asked her why a priest would take his final consolation from a heretic.
‘Because he is dying. He does not wish to die unshriven.’
‘But he is a Catholic priest. I know that is just another word for hypocrite, but why would he look to a heretic to save his mortal soul?’
‘You call the Cathars heretics, seigneur, but they revere Christ the same as you or I. Because they do not love the Pope does not mean they do not love God. Besides, there is no priest here to give him the final unction, so he has no choice.’
‘And these bons òmes will do it?’
‘They will refuse no one the last consolation. Of course, if Father Marty were in their position, he would do it only if they had the money to pay. That is the difference.’
Father Marty seemed to have shrivelled overnight. As his flesh shrunk, so his eyes appeared to have grown in his skull. He offered them a smile as they knelt down on his left side, with the Cathar priest Guilhèm Vital, and his socius, on the other side.
‘What about the others?’ Philip asked. ‘Won’t any of the other crezens join us?’
She shook her head. ‘They hate him,’ she whispered. ‘They believe this is a sham. In his life he despoiled their women and took their first fruits and charged them for every confession, every birthing. He has no friends here but us, poor man.’
Vital lit several candles around Father Marty’s body. ‘Brother,’ he said. ‘Do you wish to embrace our faith?’
‘Yes, Father. I have the will; I pray God gives me the strength.’
Vital looked up at Fabricia and at Philip. ‘Good Christians, we pray you for the love of God to bestow your blessings upon our friend here present.’
‘Father,’ Father Marty murmured, ‘ask God to lead me, a sinner, to a good end.’
‘May God bless you, make a good Christian of you and lead you to a good end.’
‘For every sin that I may have committed, by thought, word or action, I beg the forgiveness of God, the Church and all those here present.’
‘May God and the Church and all those here present forgive you these sins and we pray God absolve you of them.’
‘I promise to dedicate myself to God and his gospel, never to lie, never to take an oath, never to have any contact with a woman, never to kill an animal, never to eat meat and to feed myself only with fruits. In addition I promise never to betray my faith, whatever death awaits me.’
Vital held out the scroll of the Gospel of John and Father Marty brought his lips to it. Then he and his socius put their right hands on his head. ‘Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our spiritual sustenance, and deliver us from evil.’
He placed a plaited sash around Father Marty’s head and gave his socius the kiss of peace. He in turn gave it to Philip, and Philip kissed Fabricia lightly on the cheek. Finally, she bent and kissed Father Marty’s forehead.
‘The neophyte is to eat nothing but bread and water for the forty days of his endura,’ Vital said to Fabricia.
Father Marty gave a barking laugh. ‘I shall not see another forty hours.’
*
‘It seems to me,’ Philip said to Fabricia, ‘that it is not unreasonable to ask a man to disavow women and meat on his deathbed.’
‘That is why so few take the vows until the very end. People admire the bons òmes, they may even wish to be like them, but the vows are too hard. Only a few can live their lives that way. Their religion is mild in that it does not condemn our natures.’
‘And this consolamentum? It will save his soul and send him to heaven?’
‘Send him back to heaven. Without the vows, his soul will just migrate to another body here on earth and he will suffer, because suffering is inevitable here. If we love, we lose. If we live and are happy, we die. It is the Devil’s trap.’
He touched her gloved hand. ‘And what is this? Is this the doing of God or the Devil?’
‘I don’t know what it is.’ She winced with pain and stopped to rest, leaning her weight against him. He hesitated, and then put an arm around her shoulders.
‘It’s not there,’ she said, putting her hand lightly on his chest.
‘What isn’t there?’
‘You carried a lady’s comb inside your shirt. I found it when they first brought you here.’ She patted all around his tunic. ‘It’s gone.’
‘It belonged to Alezaïs. She was my first wife.’
‘Where is it now?’
‘It’s gone, as she is gone.’
‘You threw it away? Why?’
He shrugged. ‘What is the use?’
‘What happened to her, seigneur?’
‘She died, this four years now, birthing my boy. I was away, on crusade.’
‘And you still miss her?’
‘Every day. I loved her very much.’
‘I have never loved a man,’ Fabricia said. ‘I would not know what it is like.’
‘Would you like me to describe it to you?’
‘Do you think you can?’
He pulled her closer. ‘In Outremer, in the desert, they have watering places where travellers can stop and find rest and shade and sustenance and water. Otherwise they would not survive a long desert crossing. It is the kind of place you dream of constantly when you are thirsty. When the heat and the journey have broken you, the promise of such a place keeps you going. When you finally reach there, it is green and cool and you never want to leave it. They call such a place an oasis. Alezaïs, she was my oasis.’
Fabricia thought about this for a long time.
Finally: ‘One day,’ she said, ‘I should like to stop for shade and water. But I cannot imagine how this might happen. You are fortunate, seigneur, to have known what an oasis is like.’
She kissed her fingers and placed them on his cheek. ‘If only you were a stonemason’s apprentice looking for a wife.’
She rose to her feet and left him there.
He sat for a long time, thinking about what she had said. He realized he could not go back now, even if Raimon found him an escort. Yet neither did he wish to die; not tomorrow at least. He would give it one more day and then think again, as he had done every day since they brought him here. When the time was ripe to kill and be killed, he would know it.
LXII
Carcassonne
HUGUES DE BRETON had suffered. For almost a week now he had lain groaning and tossing in the hospital by St Anne’s Gate. The nuns prayed by his bed and tended his fever with cool cloths. The palms of his hands and the soles of his feet had been burned by the physician’s cautery iron and he had been given sedatives and herbal potions for the pain. But none of it had served, and every day he thrashed and screamed and sweated and raved, red-faced, at the phantoms who came to torment him.
Father Ortiz bent to hear his last confession but could not make out anything that would pass for words. He was babbling, making no sense. He gave him the last unction, and asked God for His mercy.
Gilles watched, one hand on his hip, his face livid.
Simon brushed away a fly. They were persistent and plentiful inside the monastery, attracted by the mountains of bloodied bandages and the putrefying wounds of the knights who had been brought there. The heat was stupefying. Outside, the city seethed. The stink of the bodies that had piled up during the siege pervaded everything even though there had been mass burnings all week. De Montfort and the other barons had returned to their camps on the other side of the ri
ver, unable to bear the stench or the heat in the city they had taken such pains to conquer.
‘The man who did this is Baron Philip de Vercy,’ Gilles hissed. ‘We know this by the device on his shield. God rot his eyes and his balls! He attacked my crusaders not once, but twice!’
‘We will inform the Pontiff and he will have him excommunicated,’ Father Ortiz assured him.
‘He will die by degrees. That good man there is my brother-in-law!’
They had joined the Host just as the city had negotiated its surrender. Gilles had been piqued that he had missed the fight. His good humour was not served any better a few days later when his force of knights and their men-at-arms arrived at Carcassonne with a score missing from their original number and Hugues de Breton slumped over his horse with one leg ruined.
The arrow wound had shattered his knee joint but it was the open wound to his lower leg that had become infected. The bonesetter had realigned the ankle only with difficulty and in the heat the wound had become putrid and now the infection had spread to the rest of his body. He was rotting in front of them.
Simon thought it a just punishment but said nothing.
‘His soul will fly straight to heaven,’ Father Ortiz said to Gilles.
‘I hope so, Father, for this last week he has surely tasted enough of purgatory.’
‘His sacrifice is for God.’
‘Did he make his confession?’
‘His soul is pure,’ he said diplomatically.
Gilles could not stand to watch this any longer. He went to the window, stared across the roofs of the Saint-Nazaire cathedral and the Bishop’s palace to the churning confluence of the Aude.
‘You have heard the news? The Count of Nevers is leaving and the Duke of Burgundy won’t be far behind him. They say they have served God’s army their forty days and it is time to go home.’
‘What about you, my lord?’ Father Ortiz said. ‘You will not abandon our great crusade as well?’
‘I shall stay a little longer. To serve God.’
Or is it because you haven’t had your share of the loot yet? Simon wondered. Another thought best kept to himself.
‘We have orders from de Montfort,’ Gilles said. ‘While he purges the Toulousain we are to join an advance force that is to strike north into the Montagne Noir. I shall be at the head of this small army. We shall take a trebuchet and twenty knights and take Montaillet and then Cabaret. May God lend favour to all our efforts.’
‘I am sure He shall. God has so far blessed us with one miracle after another.’
‘I don’t think Hugues would share your opinion, Father,’ Gilles said and stalked out.
LXIII
PHILIP KNEW BY the comings and goings of Trencavel’s soldiers that something had happened. Finally Raimon scrambled on to the rock at the mouth of the cave and called for their attention.
‘I have important news for you all,’ he said and a hush fell over the cave. ‘The crosatz have sent an expedition into the mountains against our castles at Montaillet and Cabaret. If we stay here, we risk being discovered by their raiders. Everyone knows of these caves. We may be betrayed.’
‘Then where shall we go?’ someone called out.
‘There is only one place you can go and that is to the fortress at Montaillet. I have been ordered to ride there immediately with my soldiers. Those of you who come with us will have our protection.’
‘But how shall we get there?’
‘You will have to follow us on foot across the mountains.’
‘How far is it?’
‘Five leagues. It is a long way but you have no choice. If you have carts you will have to leave them behind. Just take what you can carry.’
When Raimon finished speaking, a sigh passed around the cave. Another march, more of their precious possessions left behind, the future even more uncertain. But, as Raimon said, what choice was there? Besides, it was what they had all been expecting. It had only been a matter of time before the crosatz turned north.
*
Father Marty’s eyes blinked open. ‘Leave me here,’ he said to Fabricia. ‘I’ll be in one heaven or another very soon. You owe me nothing. If you stay, it’s just another sin on my head.’
She moved away. A shadow blocked the light from the mouth of the cave. It was Philip.
‘What did he say?’
‘He wants me to leave him behind.’
‘But you won’t, will you?’
‘There’s an old woman over there called Bruna. She was a friend of my mother’s. I used to play with her little boy when I was a child. She’s too sick to move as well. I cannot leave either of them.’
‘I thought that was what you would say.’ He sat down beside her. ‘If the crosatz find you, you know what they will do to you? Would you stay here undefended?’
‘I have no choice.’
He shook his head. ‘Did Father Marty ever show you kindness? Or anyone? Didn’t he try to rape you once? And now you want to help him?’
She shook her head. ‘It’s not about his conscience, this is about mine.’
Philip shook his head and walked away. Raimon saw him talking to her and, taking him by the arm, led him outside the cave. Father Vital was there, with his socius.
‘What will you do now, seigneur? You should come with us. It is too dangerous for you to ride alone across the Albigeois until this war has ended. You can winter at Montaillet. Besides, we could do with another good soldier if the crosatz come that far.’
Philip shook his head. ‘I can’t.’
‘What will you do then?’
‘I intend to stay here with her.’
‘Are you mad?’
‘If I am, or if I am not, it is no business of yours. Do not presume to question me.’
Raimon squeezed his arm tighter. ‘I have seen the way you look at her.’
Philip shook him off. ‘You forget yourself. Do not lay a hand on a seigneur unless you wish for another navel.’
‘She makes those wounds herself, you know,’ Father Vital said. ‘Someone saw her. She has a knife and she does it secretly. She is a witch and half-mad. It’s in her eyes.’
‘Did you see her yourself make these wounds?’
‘I trust the man who told me.’
‘So you didn’t see her.’ He turned to Raimon. ‘What do you think?’
Raimon shook his head. ‘I do not know.’
‘You were the one who brought me to her, you were the one who said that she had healed me.’
‘Perhaps you would have got better anyway. The father may be right, it could be a trick. I don’t know, seigneur, I want to believe.’
‘Be careful of her,’ Father Vital said.
Philip shook his head in disgust and walked away.
*
Like ghosts, grey and sad, they shuffled towards the mouth of the cave. Some grumbled for leaving, but mostly they were silent. The smaller children whimpered at this early interruption of their sleep. She saw one burgher carring his ledgers under his arm, struggling with his load, a servant behind him carrying scales and some rolls of parchment. Eventually, Fabricia supposed, he would have to surrender his creditors and his old life.
But it seemed he was not ready just yet.
Some of them stopped and knelt down and murmured thanks and left her something: food, a few coins; one merchant left her a ring. Others ignored her, or hissed curses.
They filed out until the last of the refugees were gone, and the cave fell silent. The carts and bundles they had left behind littered the sandy floor of the cave. Now there was just the three of them. Father Marty snored in his sleep. Old Bruna was so silent she thought she was already dead.
As the light grew stronger Fabricia saw a man silhouetted against the mouth of the cave. ‘You have come to say goodbye?’
‘I should, if I were leaving. But I have decided to stay.’
Fabricia choked a sob of relief. She had hoped that he would have sense enough to leave but prayed that he
would not. ‘I have wished both my patients dead in the night. Do you still think me a saint?’
‘I never thought you a saint.’
‘Why do you stay then, seigneur? Why does a man with a castle feel such attachment to a cave?’
‘I have asked myself that question every day since I came here. I still don’t have an answer.’
‘But you will die if you stay here.’
‘Perhaps I will die, perhaps I won’t. This morning, when I woke, it was clear to me. In the forest, when I rode against the men who killed my young squire – that was when I died. My body survived but it was death just the same, for in that moment I renounced everything I had in this world and with it I bought my freedom. I am a ghost now. I can do as I wish and the world no longer sees me. I am between one life and the next, and quite reconciled to it. What about you?’
Raimon appeared, helmet under his arm, in full armour. ‘This is your last chance to change your mind,’ he said to Philip.
‘I am staying,’ Philip said.
‘Very well. But if the crosatz find you, do the woman a favour and kill her first.’ He left.
Philip knelt down beside her. Oh, look at him, she thought. A killer, all long-boned menace with a merry smile that hides his assassin’s eyes. What does he want of you – and what do you want of him? Such compassion in him, but look at the sword he carries – paid good money for it from one of Trencavel’s soldiers, she had been told, for he could not bear to go unarmed even among refugees in a cave. And yet he is here, this morning, vowing to protect me for no good reason I can think of. If he was so full of violence and self-interest he would have slipped away long ago. I cannot understand this man.
‘Would you do it?’ she said. ‘Would you kill me first if the crusaders find us?’
‘Let us pray it does not come to that.’
‘Yes, I will pray. Are you a good man, Philip?’
‘I have tried to be.’
‘Then in the next few days you will see just how good you are.’
He smiled. ‘You also.’ He stood up. ‘I should tend to my horse.’ He turned at the mouth of the cave, nodding towards Father Marty. ‘How long?’
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