The Fire and the Light

by Glen Craney

  “A nun?”

  “A priestess. In our faith, women are treated as equal to men in the eyes of God. Some accept a life of celibacy to meditate and perform good works, but it is never forced on them. Those who wish to remain believers are free to marry and bear children. They are called credentes. We seek to avoid the wheel of rebirth. To return to the Light, we must escape the bonds of this existence.”

  “Our Lord established His Church to rule in tandem with kings and queens. He must have meant us to make the best of life here.”

  “He did not establish a church.”

  “The Scriptures say that St. Peter was chosen as the foundation rock.”

  “I can only tell you what Father Castres taught me,” said Phillipa. “The Romans twist the Master’s words to fit their purpose. There were no churches in the time of Christ. He was a Jewish rabbi. If he had created a place of worship, He would have called it a synagogue. But He had no interest in erecting houses of worship. His disciples expected the world to vanish within weeks.”

  “Are you saying that Jesus failed in His mission?”

  Phillipa nervously regarded the door. “Why would He have created a church after promising those with Him that they would witness the End of Days? The Romans had to explain away this contradiction, so they falsely added the claim that He named Peter as His successor.”

  “Why then did Jesus come to die for us on the Cross?”

  “He did not die for us,” said Phillipa. “We do not glorify that rood of torture. What loving father would send his only son to suffer so horribly? The Master came to show us how to return to the Light before physical death.”

  “Return how?’

  “By meditation and healing and discourse with the angels. Only the Magdalene and His brother James understood these mysteries.”

  “But the disciples saw Him resurrected in the flesh.”

  “They saw only what their minds could perceive,” said Phillipa. “The Master returned to them in His Body of Light to demonstrate his teachings.”

  This explanation transported Esclarmonde back to that day in Lavaur when the mystical orb had thrust her into a paralyzing ecstasy. Perhaps the Apostles had confronted the same ineffable radiance. If so, she could certainly empathize with their confusion. “Phillipa ... I think I’ve seen this Light.”

  Phillipa showed no surprise. “Father Castres said you are one of us. Perhaps one day you will become a perfecta.”

  “But I’m to be married.”

  “Many hear the calling after their families are raised.”

  For the first time, Esclarmonde began to understand how a life of a perfecta could attract a woman; no worries about men and their demands, to be left in peace to pray and seek God.

  Seeing Esclarmonde’s eyes hood with fatigue, Phillipa locked the packed trunks and teased, “Last one up in the morning must wake your brother.”

  Phillipa walked down the hall and tiptoed passed the sleeping guards. The kicking of the horses in the stable gave the only evidence of life in the shuttered castle. She came to the solar and discovered the door ajar. She cracked it open a bit more and found Roger standing at the hearth with his back turned. She inquired softly, “My lord?”

  Roger whirled and let fly with a goblet. “Leave me be, woman! I’ll suffer no lectures this night!”

  The goblet sailed past Phillipa’s head and bounced off the door frame. She allowed him a moment to recover his bearings, then replied with a hint of gentle reproof, “I am sorry for disturbing you.”

  Only then did Roger realize that she was not the Marquessa hounding him again. “Wait ... I thought—”

  “Is there anything you require before I retire?”

  He stared at her, too long for discretion. “Do you have an army?” She melted him with that same tender smile. “No, you’d slay the enemy with that Greek fire you shoot from those eyes.”

  Phillipa blushed from the strange compliment as she busied herself with cleaning up the mess that he had created. While sorting the papers on his desk, she saw the parchment that contained the terms of Esclarmonde’s dowry.

  He detected her interest. “You know of Montsegur?”

  “My people cherish it as a holy place.”

  He hissed with contempt. “The rock has been nothing but a curse to me. I’ll be glad to be rid of it. It will be the Gascon’s problem now.”

  “Will he build upon it?”

  “The crest is too misshapen for a chateau. He’ll use it as stakes for a gamble and some other malcontent will stumble into its possession.”

  “A treasure is often hidden in the most useless location.”

  “Then the gold of Midas must be stashed inside that pog.” And yet, he was forced to admit that if this girl could be so wondrously transformed in the few months he had known her, perhaps even that misshapen thrust of limestone might one day prove of value. He staggered from the wine and lack of sleep.

  Phillipa assisted him to the bed and removed his boots. She examined his ankle scar to ensure it was healing, then drew the covers over him and turned to leave. At the door, she hesitated. “My lord, I have meant to ask you ...”

  “Will you not call me Roger?”

  “Roger, then ... Why did you come to my assistance in Toulouse? You have made it clear how much you despise my faith.”

  He looked away. “You reminded me of my mother. I chose not to abandon you, as she abandoned me.”

  “I am certain she did not mean to leave you.”

  Without warning, his mood turned black again. “Isn’t that what you Cathars do? Leave your families and go find God on some cloudy perch away from us flesh-eating mortals?”

  She calmed him by tucking the covers to his neck. “Have I left you?”

  Eyes closed, he muttered, “You will.”

  I came out of Light and the gods.

  Here in exile am I from them kept apart.

  - The Soul’s Fate, a Manichean hymn

  XI

  Gascony

  September 1198

  Sad the Almighty wished to hasten the remorse of sinners with a glimpse of Purgatory, He might with equal effect have led them down the lone street of L’Isle. Michaelmas was the traditional day for celebrating the harvest, but the squalid village appeared so abeyant that the calendar could have been mistaken for Good Friday. Gascony was the only province in France still held by the Plantagenets of England, a vestige of Eleanor of Aquitane’s marriage to Henry II. The region bordered Toulousia, yet the Basques who lived here were foreigners in both tradition and attitude. King Phillip and his court in Paris found them such perfidious people that they coined the phrase promesse de Gascon to denote an empty vow. Even pilgrims walking to Compostela were warned to take a circuitous route to avoid the gangs of robbers and cutthroats that lurked in these marcher wilds.

  Punished by icy spits from the early-season storm, Roger led the Foix women on horse toward the church, a converted warehouse crowned by a rusted iron cross that rattled in the wind. Perched high on a hill overlooking this ramshackle cluster of waddle-and-daub cabins stood Jourdaine’s austere tower of ruddy limestone. A desultory finger of green-wood smoke coughed up from its sooted vent. The church door, nailed with the banns of marriage, creaked open. Jourdaine ambled out with Simon de Montfort, both armed.

  Jourdaine snarled, “You’ve kept us waiting.”

  The Marquessa dismounted with Roger’s assistance and attacked the snow-blanketed steps to inspect the Gascon’s pocked face up close.

  “Cease bewitching me with that evil eye, woman, or I’ll have you banished.”

  “I’ll not leave this festering sty soon enough!” said the Marquessa. “So you are the cretin who hatched this scheme.”

  “The contract was freely accepted.”

  She drove a finger into his chest. “There was a time—”

  “Spare us your kitchen tales.” Jourdaine shunted her aside and came to Esclarmonde, half-expecting to see her fair features altered in some perverse a
ttempt at revenge. “Are you well?”

  “My health was not part of the arrangement.”

  “The passage of time has not tamed her tongue,” said de Montfort.

  The Marquessa glowered the Norman to silence. “I had the misfortune of meeting your caitiff father, the Count of Evreaux. You share his lack of couth.”

  The villagers began cautiously emerging from their huts to steal a glimpse of the foreign woman who was about to wed their liege. Roger attempted to escort the ladies into the church to shelter them from the cold stares and raw gusts, but Jourdaine blocked his path and insisted that the legal dispensation be conducted outside for all to witness. With an impotent huff, Roger produced the marital contract for inspection.

  Jourdaine quickly read the document. “This is not what we agreed. I’ll not allow Montsegur to revert at my death.”

  Stunned, Esclarmonde caught Roger and Phillipa sharing a knowing glance. She had not been told of this late addition to the terms. Her brother so despised the mount where their mother had disappeared that she could not fathom what motivated him to negotiate the possibility of its repossession.

  “Occitan law requires the land be returned to the bride’s family should no heir be produced,” said Roger. “If you wish to contest the matter, we’ll submit it to the justiciar in Toulouse and delay the wedding pending the litigation.”

  Jourdaine weighed the challenge, then scratched his signature to the agreement. He quirked his mouth at Esclarmonde and threw open the doors. “I have another wedding gift for you.”

  Folques, in full clerical regalia, stood under the architrave.

  The Marquessa had to be restrained from charging at the former troubadour. “This scapegrace will not sanction the vows!”

  “The Bishop of Bordeaux has ordered me here to perform the ceremony.”

  “You are sent by that bastard of Satan, the Abbot of Citeaux!”

  “I’ll not abide blasphemy in God’s sanctuary!” warned Folques.

  “You blaspheme with your presence!” She slapped his face. “I once showered you with all the courtesy our modest principality could offer!”

  Eyes watering, Folques captured her wrist and sought her removal, but Jourdaine merely snorted with amusement. Denied his retribution, Folques shoved the Marquessa from his path and led the congregation down the aisle.

  The cloud of incense and dust inside the church was so thick that Esclarmonde was forced to cover her mouth to stifle a cough. The moldering vault, devoid of pews, was dimly lit by two facing wall slits that produced a tormented whistling. The floor of pounded clay held an altar of rough-hewn rock furnished with one unlit candle.

  Only when Folques reached the ambulatory did he notice the hooded figure following Esclarmonde. He recognized her as the heretic girl who had escaped the stake in Toulouse. “She will not be permitted in holy confines.”

  “She is my sister’s maid of honor,” said Roger.

  Phillipa moved quickly to diffuse the confrontation. “I will wait outside.” She hugged Esclarmonde and whispered, “Send me your thoughts. I will send you mine. You will never be alone.” With difficulty, she broke from the embrace and rushed from the church.

  Before Esclarmonde could recover from the enforced abandonment, Jourdaine intertwined his fingers with hers and formed the handfasting symbol of infinity. She struggled to pull away, but he subdued her. He had not given her time to remove her cloak—a small blessing, she now counted it, for the added layer provided a welcome boundary to his noxious proximity.

  At Jourdaine’s insistent nod, Folques dispensed with the preliminaries and commenced the vows. “I charge you both, as you will answer on the Day of Judgment when secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed. If either knows any impediment why you may not be joined in matrimony, confess it now.”

  Jourdaine’s grip tightened in a warning for Esclarmonde to remain mute. She begged a miraculous intervention from the chipped icon that stood over the sacristy, but the Blessed Virgin’s plaintive eyes remained downcast.

  “There is no love in this binding!” protested the Marquessa.

  “Your rules of romance hold no weight here,” said Folques.

  “They were weighty enough when you fished for amors. Now you cast about for any means to drain the rancor from your malignant heart.” The Marquessa told Jourdaine, “This faux monk burns for the woman you barter to marry.”

  The Gascon was too preoccupied with the curve of Esclarmonde’s bosom to hear the Marquessa’s indictment.

  “He intends to ruin her if he cannot—”

  “Desist, woman!” shouted Folques.

  The Marquessa would not be silenced. “I curse every reprobate involved in the crafting of this unholy attachment!”

  “Finish it!” ordered Jourdaine.

  Folques pronounced the rest of the recital in a faltering stutter. “Jourdaine L’Isle, will you have ... have this woman to be thy wedded wife to live ... together after God’s ordinance?”

  “I will.”

  “Esclarmonde de Foix, will you have this man to be thy wedded husband, to obey and serve him, keeping only him in your heart”—Folques choked up—“for as long as you shall live?”

  She kept her gaze inward. “I take him ... as my husband.”

  Folques saw through her temporizing. “You must give oath to all demands.”

  “I’ll not mock God by falsely swearing my heart,” said Esclarmonde. “The Lord of L’Isle knows he will never have it.”

  Jourdaine dismissed that prophecy with a cold laugh and jerked an impatient nod for Folques to speed the ceremony.

  Folques was embroiled in his own war of wills with Esclarmonde. “I will not confer the sacrament unless—”

  Jourdaine shouted, “She is not marrying you, monk!”

  “I am the Church’s representative here.”

  “Her prostration will suffice,” said Jourdaine.

  Aghast, Marquessa pulled Esclarmonde to her side. “I forbid it!”

  “Then the heretic will be returned to Toulouse this hour,” said Jourdaine.

  Esclarmonde descended to her knees and lowered her head to Jourdaine’s muddied boots to perform the ritual of obeisance. She would fain accept the disgrace if it meant not having to swear against her love for Guilhelm. Unable to endure the humiliation further, the Marquessa lifted her from the floor.

  Folques clumsily placed the lace betrothal cloth on Esclarmonde’s head while she burned him with a glare meant to haunt the rest of his days. He tried in vain to avoid her vengeful eyes. “Who gives this woman?”

  Roger stepped forward. “I stand for her father, a knight of the Cross who will seek justice from Heaven should any harm come to her.”

  The fierce reputation of Esclarmonde’s father was so storied that the mere invocation of his ghost would give most mortals pause. Jourdaine, however, was not a man to dwell upon the spiritual consequences of his acts; with a hiss of contempt, he slid a crude band on Esclarmonde’s finger and held her hand aloft. When he released it, the band fell to the stones. Eyes as round as coins, he questioned if the Marquessa had invoked the omen by witchery. He retrieved the ring and searched Esclarmonde’s hand until deciding on her index finger.

  Esclarmonde offered up a silent prayer of gratitude for this small sign of divine protest. When Folques crowned the couple’s clasp with his gloved hand to form the symbol of the Trinity, she turned away, repelled by the simultaneous touch of the two men she most despised.

  “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, I pronounce thee man and wife,” said Folques. “What God has joined, let no man put asunder.”

  After an awkward pause, Jourdaine turned to kiss Esclarmonde, but she shrank from his attempt. He chose not to press the rebuff and led her out with a hand clamped to her elbow to force the pace. When they reached the portico, he dismissed Roger and the other Foix women. “You may take your leave.”

  The Marquessa searched for an excuse to delay their parting. “The bed mus
t be blessed. We will serve as witnesses.”

  “De Montfort will perform the task,” said Jourdaine.

  With an embittered wave of resignation, Roger descended the steps to retrieve the horses. The Marquessa hung back; she had kept her family together through many tragedies, but now she was near collapsing with despair.

  Esclarmonde pulled her godmother to a shaking embrace. “Do not burden Corba with the details,” she whispered. “I have darkened enough of her joyous time.” She kissed the Marquessa goodbye and tried not to look back.

  Jourdaine ordered her, “Be undressed when I return.”

  Esclarmonde had never encountered a room so woefully maintained. Shadowed by an indifferent fire in a charred hearth, the wedding bed consisted of an uncanopied mattress stuffed with straw and was covered with a quilt stained the color of fermented cider. She thought of bolting the door, but she knew the futile act would only enrage him. Finding no means of escaping her predicament, she removed her mother’s Cathar medallion from her neck and slid it under the matting. She retrieved a phial from her baggage and gulped the infusion of cloves and cabbage juice that Phillipa had prepared as a contraceptive. She fought to keep the bitter liquid down.

  The door opened—she closed her fist to hide the phial.

  Jourdaine stripped off his shirt and breeches. “Are you deaf? I told you to get out of that dress. They’ll be here soon.”

  She had rehearsed this horrid moment a hundred times, but she could not force herself to disrobe. “I am overwhelmed with fatigue.”

  “By God, I’ll get it done myself!”

  She ran for the window. He caught her and threw her onto the bed.

  “Unhand me!”

  He hammered her against the headboard. “I’ll not tell you again!” He pulled her hair back and forced his tongue down her throat. Choking from tears, she slowly unfastened her bliaut. He became impatient and cut the strings with his dagger, then saw that her chemise was splattered with blood. Horrified, he inspected his blade and found it clean. “What sorcery is this?”

  Esclarmonde traced the trail of blood down her arm—the phial shards had embedded into her palm.