by Glen Craney
Aimery rushed back from the ravine. “Hurry!”
“You must save this man,” insisted Giraude.
Aimery had no time to question her reason. The night winds were fanning the flames and the Northern sentries would be alerted within minutes. He yanked at the chain on Guilhelm’s wrist but found it fastened firmly by a bolt. He brought his blade down on the links, but the weapon bounced off with no effect. He shook his head in defeat. “The shackles are too strong.”
Shouts of discovery rang out from the crusader camp.
Guilhelm chased Aimery off with a kick. “Away! Both of you!”
Giraude knelt before Guilhelm and forced him to look into her searching eyes. “Is your love for Esclarmonde not worth a hand?”
Guilhelm was speechless. How did this woman know of his feelings for Esclarmonde? The flames, fueled by the dry brush, swirled closer, singing his face. A horrible death was only seconds away if the crusaders did not reach him first. He flexed his left hand, trying to imagine an existence without it. Yet he could not bear the thought of never seeing Esclarmonde again. He went blank with indecision—why did he lack Trencavel’s courage? He threw his arm across the beam. Giraude held his face away and prayed the Cathar Pater Noster. The heat was so punishing that he sensed what it must feel like to burn alive.
“It is finished,” said Giraude.
Guilhelm looked up at her in astonishment. He had felt nothing. Could the blade truly have done its work? He relaxed his arm and—
Aimery brought down his sword.
Giraude stifled Guilhelm’s scream. Blood spurted across her cloak. A bolt of searing pain crawled up Guilhelm’s spine as he rolled free and grasped his severed wrist. She tore a strip from her sleeve and ligatured his gushing artery while Aimery and his knights covered their retreat.
The chateau’s wall reverberated from a thudding crash. Guilhelm awoke with a fire raging in his head and a cauterized stump staring back at him. His delirium slowly gave way to cold reality: The Occitans had failed to destroy the engine. Through the window, he saw from the damage to the village that de Montfort had intensified the fusillade in punishment for the raid. He studied the space where his left hand had once existed. He could still feel his fingers, but the stump remained motionless when he squeezed.
Giraude swabbed his beaded brow. “The fever has eased.”
“I cannot hold a shield or grip reins ... I am useless to you.”
At the door, Aimery brought forward a blacksmith who carried a hollowed iron tube that had been cast with slits to resemble the curved fingers of a hand. Giraude slid the prosthetic over Guilhelm’s stump, which she had treated with the Cathar red oil, a concoction of St. John’s wort and olive oil that possessed miraculous healing properties. “We took some measurements while you were asleep.” She threaded two leather thongs through holes in the tube, tied their ends over his elbow, and wrapped them tightly against his biceps.
Guilhelm waved the arm. The prosthetic was heavy, but he was confident of building the strength required to wield it. “I wish I had a miracle for you.”
Giraude dismissed her brother and the blacksmith from the room. When alone with Guilhelm, she revealed, “We have sent messengers to Foix for help. None have made it past de Montfort’s lines.”
Guilhelm tried to envision how he might ride with one good hand. It would be suicidal, but he was determined to attempt it. “Bring me your best horse.”
Giraude bolted the door to prevent entry. “My brother must not hear what I am about to tell you ... I will not survive this siege.”
Guilhelm tried to rise from the cot in protest. “My lady ...”
She gently bade him rest while he still had the time. “I am prepared to leave this world. You, however, still have much to live for. Should you reach Foix, you must take caution.”
“Why?”
“The Count nurses a blood revenge against you. He has exiled Esclarmonde to Montsegur. You must find a way to convince them to heal their animosities. They will need each other in the times ahead.”
“Let me try to take you from here.”
Giraude packed a few dried beans in a knapsack for his sustenance. “I would only slow you ... Deliver a message to Esclarmonde for me. In our faith, I cannot return to the Light until I seek pardon from all whom I have wronged. I selfishly insisted that she and Phillipa leave their homes to preach. She must hold me coldly in her heart for what I have cost her.”
“The heart I know does not descend to such degree.”
“There is also another from whom I must beg forgiveness.”
“Who, my lady?”
“You.”
“Surely you have never injured me!”
“More gravely, I fear, than you can imagine.” After a hesitation, she revealed, “When Esclarmonde was first brought to me for instruction, she spoke of her love for a Templar. I convinced her that she was destined for a higher purpose.”
That admission stung Guilhelm more sharply than the pain in his arm. Had it not been for this Cathar woman, he might now be married to Esclarmonde and far away from this war. Yet he could harbor no malice toward her. She had only followed the dictates of her religion, as he had done when he turned Phillipa over to the Cistercians. “She made the choice of her own will.”
“Will you take the Consolamentum before you leave?”
“I don’t adhere to the beliefs of your faith.”
“But you wear the merel?”
“It carries Esclarmonde’s touch.”
She removed the Cathar talisman from her neck and handed it to him. “Place this in Montsegur’s chapel. In remembrance of me.”
By the eighth day of the siege, the walls had been reduced to rubble and there had been no sign of a relief force from Foix. Resigned to their fate, Aimery and his starving garrison, depleted to forty men, manned what remained of the defenses near the gape while Giraude gathered her perfects into the church to exchange their final Touch of the Light.
An hour after dawn, the Bad Neighbor fell silent. A serried phalanx of three thousand crusaders swarmed over the gorge and converged on the walls. Aimery fought bravely, but the Northerners tightened their pincers and drove the defenders into a scrum so packed that they could not raise their swords. Exhausted, Aimery and his Occitans dropped their weapons.
Simon cudgeled Aimery to his knees and ordered the Occitans bound. “Where is your heretic sister?” Receiving no answer, Simon rammed his blade through the throat of a prisoner. He wiped the blood on the hair of the next Occitan knight in line. “I can make it slower.”
“In the church,” sputtered the man.
Before the sanctuary could be stormed, Giraude unlocked its doors and came out with her fellow Cathars. The Cistercians chanted Te Deums as the soldiers dragged the perfects into the square. Dominic pressed his crucifix against Giraude’s forehead to imprint it with the image of the cross. “Woman, accept the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ. These wayward souls will follow your example.”
“I have accepted my God,” she said.
“You must accept Him under the authority of the Holy Father in Rome and the Apostolic Church!” insisted Dominic.
She maintained a defiant glare. “I will obey your demand when you tell me where it is written that the Apostles ransacked towns and committed murder.”
Dominic turned white with fury. “Here Satan makes his habitat!”
“I know who you are,” she said. “My only regret is that I was not present in Pamiers when the Perfecta of Foix bested your arguments.”
Indignant, Dominic appealed to Folques. “I prevailed that day!”
“Not one of our people converted under your threats,” reminded Giraude.
“Swear against the existence of two gods!” demanded Dominic. “Repeat the Nicene Creed! I believe in One God, Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen!”
“Did He create that hurling abomination of destruction?” she asked.
“He did! To pound you for
your sins!”
“I will worship no god who sanctions violence against fellow Christians,” she said. “My brothers and sisters are free to do as they desire.”
None came forward to take up Dominic’s offer. Impatient with the standoff, Simon dragged Aimery up a staircase and forced him to stand on a plank that had been set under a beam. He looped a rope around Aimery’s neck and yanked it tight. Simon’s kinsmen prepared the other Occitan knights for hanging. Giraude rushed up to transmit the Consolamentum, but she was thrown back.
Twirling his sword, Simon strode below the creaking plank. “Where is that conniving Templar? I have something of his.” He pulled a wrapped bundle from his saddlebag and threw Guilhelm’s severed hand at Giraude.
Aimery looked down at his sister to reassure her that a better life awaited them. “I will see you soon. I love you.”
With a scorning laugh, Simon brought his sword down on Aimery’s ankle, drawing a cry of agony. Weighed down by their armor, the noosed Occitans stood helpless as Aimery struggled to maintain balance on his good leg. Simon hacked off Aimery’s remaining ankle. The boards split asunder and dropped the knights into the nooses. Giraude turned away, unable to watch them strangle. A great crash was followed by unearthly moans—the beam had collapsed under their weight. The Occitans writhed and kicked on the ground, some dying from broken necks, most still half-conscious.
Simon glanced toward the heavens, questioning if divine intervention had thwarted him. Reassured by Dominic that the Almighty approved of the executions, the Norman finished off Aimery by slitting his throat. Those Occitans still alive were dispatched in the same grisly manner. When the butchery was finished, Simon removed his bloodied gloves and threw them at Almaric’s feet. “The cloggers are yours to deal with. I have a thirst to quench.”
Almaric stepped back. “You know I am precluded from drawing blood.”
“Yes, I am constantly reminded of your purity.”
Almaric looked to Dominic, who had conveniently fallen to his knees in tranced prayer. The Abbot delegated the duty to Folques. Eager to lay waste to the town, Simon’s men dragged the Cathars to a palisade that they had constructed outside the gate. The perfects walked willingly into the piles of brush and stacked the kindling around their own feet.
Giraude prepared to climb into the pyre, but Simon held her back. “I have other plans for you.”
The crusaders barred the palisade’s gate with poles. Simon offered the torch to Folques, but he could not bring himself to light the fire. Disgusted, Simon stole the torch back and flung it over the logs. “That Templar was right. You’ll never be more than a juggler of words.”
The faggots quickly took flame. Revived by the heat, Dominic erupted from his rapture and held his crucifix toward the billowing smoke to speed the wayward souls to their damnation. When the holocaust was finally finished, not one scream from the dying Cathars had been heard.
Giraude shook with grief as she knelt before the charred pyre. She turned upon Folques with a promise. “Our suffering lasts for minutes. Yours will consume an eternity.”
Green from the stench of burnt flesh, Folques heaved his morning’s meal.
Simon chortled at Folques’s notoriously weak stomach and tossed him a handful of grass to wipe his robes. He dragged Giraude into the square and stood her in front of the well once blessed by Mary Magdalene, the same spring that had nourished Esclarmonde during her first initiation into the Light.
“I have had a divine revelation,” said Simon. “The men of this land are mere puppets controlled by their women. It is time we dealt with the true source of our troubles.” He hammered Giraude to the ground. “That harlot in Foix needs to be sent a message. From this day forward, I will administer the same justice to you witches that I would to any traitor.”
Bloodied, Giraude stood unsteadily and reclaimed her condemning gaze. “Yes, I am a witch. I can see the future. I see that you will die at the hands of an Occitan woman. I see that generations will forever ring their bells on the anniversary of your death.”
Simon gave up a half-hearted laugh to disarm the strange oracle. “If it is a woman to be the death of me, I can make certain it won’t be you.” On his signal, the crusaders quartered Giraude across the well. Simon tossed a rock into the hole. Several seconds passed before a distant splash was heard. “Our God has shown us a shortcut to Hell.” He placed a large stone on her stomach. “You will take it.”
Giraude closed her eyes and prayed.
The crusaders dropped her into the darkness. A thud from the depths was followed by several weak moans, then silence.
“Fill it,” ordered Simon.
Every soldier and monk in the crusader army was required to file by the well and drop a stone. By dusk, the sacred spring no longer offered up its healing waters. That night, many of the Northerners could not sleep, convinced that they heard the lamentations of the Magdalene echoing from deep within the earth. Several crusaders pleaded with Simon to restore the well, but he mocked their fears and ordered the village razed.
The Essenes despise danger and conquer pain by sheer willpower; death, if it comes with honor, they value more than life without end. Their spirit was tested to the utmost by the war with the Romans, who racked and twisted, burnt and broke them, subjecting them to every torture yet invented to make them blaspheme the lawgiver or eat some forbidden fruit.
- Josephus Flavius, The Jewish Wars
XXV
Foix
June 1211
There is another way to die.
That was the promise Bishop Castres made to his flock before leaving Montsegur to minister to those of the faith on the other side of the mountains in Catalonia. Placed in charge of the temple during his absence, Esclarmonde had intensified her quest to find the way back to the Light through that spiritus incognita once blazed by the Essenes and Nasoreans.
Yet after two years of meditating on the kabbalistic Tree of Life, she had come no closer to reaching the elusive Middle Way to the Throne. With de Montfort’s army closing in, she was joined in this desperate mission by the hundreds of perfects and perfectas who had taken refuge with her on the pog’s vertiginous terraces. What these navigators of the higher realms sought was not the uninitiated passing by physical death, which would only return them to the world to repeat their sufferings, but the mystical release that came by degrees, the same radiant transfiguration of the body that the Master had tried to teach before His mission was cut short by the crucifixion.
Esclarmonde’s frustration with her slow spiritual progress was heightened by her discovery that the inner planes did not seem to adhere to the same cause-and-effect laws governing the world of the senses. Each morning, she would gather with her students for a light breakfast and discuss their nocturnal dreams, sifting through the dredge of meaningless harlequinades and chimera for jewels of insight. She became so fixated on the narratives of these visions that she often found it difficult to discern what was real and what had merely been created by her imagination. Months into this discipline, she came to suspect that what she saw during waking hours was no more substantial than the objects in her dreams. At times she would take up a fistful of dirt and stare at it for hours while trying to winnow its essence from the form. Everything in this realm of earth and water and air seemed to be the props of a clever illusion created by the Demiurge.
In fact, the deeper she delved into the arcana of the Light, the more the outer and inner worlds appeared to operate like a series of mirrors. As a child, she once encountered a street jongleur in Toulouse who, by angling two concave plates of polished silver, had conjured so many multiplied images of her face that she seemed to recede into eternity. When she questioned him about his trickery, he revealed himself much wiser than his frivolous profession might warrant. The jongleur had taken her aside to explain that when the sun falls on an object, some of its light is reflected, some is absorbed, and some is stolen. For a smooth surface to serve as a mirror, it must reflect the sun’s
benefice while retaining as little as possible. The grace of God’s Light, he told her, worked in much the same manner: A soul must be without blemish to reflect the Almighty’s saving effluence upon those in greater need. He then whispered to her the secret key that she had never forgotten:
As above, so below.
Years later, she discovered that many of the joculators and mummers who performed with the troubadours were alchemists in disguise. They adopted such debased trades as cover to travel from city to city and work with fellow practitioners. In recent weeks, the image of that jongleur’s multiplying contrivance had reappeared in her meditations. She was struck by an intuition: Enlightenment unfolds much like the sun’s rays against the mirror of this world, with each reflection absorbing just enough Light to form its own image, then offering back the rest to the Source. Perhaps the stations of the Tree were like mirrors facing mirrors that reduced each multiplied reflection until the false outer shell disappears. Castres once said that when one stands in the Light but does not offer its blessings to others, a shadow is formed in the spiritual world.
Yet when she examined her own reflection in water, she saw that the image differed from its source in one important respect: It formed a perfect opposite in polarity. This epiphany led her to posit a second law of the Chariot: Everything has its opposite, in this world and beyond. These contraries were drawn together by an invisible force, like iron shavings to a lodestone. She had been warned that the demons who tempt the aspirant are chosen by the Demiurge for their ability to expose the searcher’s weaknesses. For this reason, the initiate is obliged to thoroughly examine the dark aspects of her own soul.
On this evening, a summer rain pummeled her wattle hut, settling in with a dripping humidity. The thatched roof was so leaky that she feared it might collapse. She cored the drainage rut with a spade, then chewed a few fava beans to chase the hunger pangs and spread her threadbare mat in preparation to again attempt the Gate of Yesod.
This station, the second on the kabbalist’s Tree, was the most dangerous. It was in Yesod—the Hebrew word for Foundation—where the archons were said to work their most elaborate delusions by devising a bestiary of soul-sucking demons that masqueraded as angels and beneficent beings. If she could not reach this lower mansion, she had no hope of making it up all twenty-two paths. In previous sessions, she had meticulously followed the rabbi’s prescriptions, taking the most oblique approach, watching, ever watching, for the moment of opportunity. But her patience and strength were ebbing fast.