The Fire and the Light

by Glen Craney

  “The maxims!” exclaimed Corba. “How many can you still recite?”

  Esclarmonde demonstrated that the quick wit so lauded in the courts of old had not waned. “No one can love unless driven on by the prospect of love.”

  Corba took up the challenge. “At the sudden sight of the beloved, the lover’s heart quakes.”

  Chandelle listened with delight as her mother and godmother transformed into coquettish conspirators. Their voices grew more girlish with each remembered rule of Andreas Capellanus’s treatise on the art of honest loving.

  “A love divulged rarely lasts,” said Corba.

  “No one can possess two loves at once.”

  Corba was stumped. “No one ... should be deprived ...”

  Esclarmonde gave Corba no time to finish, just as she had been wont to do when they had studied for the exam as court initiates. “No one should be deprived of his love without very good reason.” Drawing the same look of exasperation, she needled Corba with an elbow and came up with another rule. “Love is always growing or diminishing.”

  Chandelle interrupted their contest. “Can that one be true?”

  Esclarmonde held fast to Chandelle’s arm—the maxim about love diminishing had struck her heart with an unexpected force.

  Corba felt Esclarmonde’s forehead. “Are you not well?”

  Esclarmonde shook off a wave of sadness. “I’m fine.”

  “They were silly games,” dismissed Corba.

  “No, I owe her an answer,” said Esclarmonde. “We once pestered your mother with such questions.”

  Corba sighed with regret. “Those days are long gone.”

  Esclarmonde led them to the flat-surfaced boulder to sit. The younger perfectas tarried to hear more about her legendary life, but Corba, always protective of these rare moments of privacy, waved them on down the pog. Esclarmonde lifted her face to the sun’s warmth while debating how best to respond to Chandelle’s question. “It does seem that love requires undivided attention. At least, that has been my experience.”

  Chandelle straightened in surprise. “So, the God of Light is also jealous, just like the Demiurge?”

  “Could you share the man you loved with another—” Esclarmonde thought it prudent to abort that example, solicitous as she was to the feelings of this goddaughter who had never experienced the embrace of passion. It was a subject that both of them had been careful to avoid.

  Yet this time Chandelle would have none of Esclarmonde’s attempt to evade the subject. “I’d be worried that my feelings would exceed his.”

  Esclarmonde shook her head in marvel at the many times this scriptural passage about God’s jealousy had come to bear on her life. “Can we ask more of God than we could offer of ourselves?”

  “You just said otherwise,” reminded Chandelle. “The rules hold that true jealousy increases love’s ardor. If God is jealous, would He not desire us to come to Him even more?”

  Esclarmonde gave up a laugh of surrender, grateful that the Catholic disputants at Pamiers had not possessed such perspicacity. “It would seem so.”

  “What was Guilhelm like?” Chandelle ignored her mother’s admonishing squeeze on her arm. She was determined to hear more about the man whose life had been kept a mystery. “I was only a child when he left.”

  Esclarmonde could not recall the last time she heard Guilhelm’s name spoken, and yet her breath still quickened. This reaction severely vexed her, for she knew it to be a seduction instilled into the flesh by the Demiurge. “He suffered from a wound so deep that I was never able to plumb it. I believe his faith was severely tested early in life. Most draw closer to God as they grow older, but he wrestled his doubts more fiercely than Jacob fought the angel ... We were so different.” She raised her eyes to the sun to dry a tear.

  Chandelle snuggled closer. “Has your love for him diminished?”

  So many incidents of Esclarmonde’s life had faded from her memory, and some she had buried intentionally, but not the image of Guilhelm’s imperious face during their first encounter. No, that fateful moment in the love court had been forever inscribed upon her mind’s eye. Lord Jesus, his gaze was hotter than that blood-red cross on his tunic. Love of woman for her own sake is heresy in the eyes of the Church. Is that not true, sir? How prophetic those words to him had been. Why hadn’t she allowed him to just walk away? Was it truly her voice that had appointed him as her defender? Finding Chandelle still awaiting an answer, she dared not compound the sin of thinking about Guilhelm so intimately by offering up a lie. “No, it has not diminished.”

  “Then it has grown,” insisted Chandelle. “The Rule says that Love must either diminish or grow. The emotion cannot remain unaltered.”

  Esclarmonde raised her palms in defeat. “You were always a shrewd learner. I would have been no match for you in the courts.”

  “You’ve not heard from him?” asked Chandelle.

  “Not since we left Foix. What has it been, Corba?”

  “Twenty-five years.”

  Chandelle fell silent, and Esclarmonde knew what she was thinking: How could she have grown in her love for Guilhelm and yet be capable of turning him away, as she had done after Muret? Playing for time, Esclarmonde arose from the boulder and renewed their stroll. Finally, she said, “Certain maxims are said to take precedence over others. For example, there is the rule that says one cannot love another unless driven on by the prospect of love.”

  Chandelle stopped abruptly. “Love is eternal. Surely it does not depend on requited affection? And how can you be sure Guilhelm doesn’t still love you?”

  Esclarmonde angled to hide the inculpatory surge of color in her cheeks. “Even if he is alive, he would have long since forgotten me. It was for the best that we parted. I brought him only affliction and pain.”

  Chandelle pawed at the dirt with her sandal, the most outward display of anger her gentle soul could muster. “If the God of Light demands abstention from passion, then He is no better than the Demiurge.”

  The three women turned a bend and nearly collided with Loupe, who was climbing the path at an impatient pace. Behind her came Raymond de Perella, Bernard Saint-Martin, and a contingent of soldiers laden with caches of swords and bows. The men genuflected to Esclarmonde—all but a short, barrel-chested stranger whose sunburnt face was framed by a unkempt red beard. His undisciplined green eyes were so closely set that their unruly brows were joined as one, a feature said to accompany an unbalanced temperament.

  Esclarmonde felt an immediate dislike for the new arrival whose contemptuous sneer confirmed that the opinion was reciprocated. She complained to Loupe, “You’re turning my temple into an arsenal. Have I not told you—”

  “All Occitania is an arsenal,” said the stranger, interrupting sharply.

  Raymond moved quickly to defuse the confrontation. “This is Pierre-Roger of Mirepoix. He fought with your brother at Muret.”

  “You promised no more soldiers would be stationed here.”

  “I haven’t enough men to hold the crag,” said Raymond. “Pierre-Roger has agreed to provide reinforcements in exchange for a share of the command.”

  “Extortion, not altruism, is what he offers,” said Esclarmonde.

  Loupe abruptly reversed her resumed climb. “The French army is thirty leagues away and the Dominicans are in Lavelanet!”

  “Young Raymond in Toulouse will protect us,” said Esclarmonde.

  “The Count no longer young,” said Loupe. “And if you took interest in our welfare, you’d know that he is cuckolded by that detestable hag in Paris.”

  Esclarmonde questioned how two members of the same bloodline could be so different. Yet she had encountered other such examples: Eleanor de Aquitane, a kind soul who had patronized many a troubadour, was the grandmother of the current queen mother, Blanche de Castile, an intolerant harridan. This war against her faith had turned fathers against sons and mothers against daughters. The debts of past lives, it seemed, always held sway over shared lineage. P
erhaps the Demiurge arranged such conflicting familial combinations for his cruel amusement. “Blanche’s position must be difficult, surrounded as she is by ambitious men who seek to impose their dominion.” Esclarmonde glanced with challenge at Pierre-Roger to drive home her point. “Let us pray she succeeds in convincing her son to embrace peace.”

  Loupe slung down her load of weapons in exasperation. “That scheming Spanish bitch wants to destroy us! And you defend her?”

  Bernard tried to mollify Loupe, but she shunted him aside. Her nerves had been rubbed raw from being forced to live in such close proximity to the perfects whose pacifism she despised. Nor had she forgiven Esclarmonde for her father’s death, which she blamed on her aunt’s refusal to take her Cathars from Foix.

  Esclarmonde softened her tone in conciliation. “This war has been waged for forty years. All it has gained us is more suffering.” Rebuffed by Loupe’s icy glare, she saw no purpose in trying to reason with her further. She whipped her sleeve to her elbow and resumed her walk.

  “Mother!” demanded Loupe. “Where are you going?”

  Esclarmonde flushed with anger. Her flock addressed her with the maternal title out of respect, but Loupe applied the honorific as an irritant, enunciating it with galling spite as a reminder of her advancing age and her role in taking Loupe’s own mother from this world. This sharp-tongued niece knew where the deepest wounds lay and how to salt them. Without turning, Esclarmonde answered testily, “We are taking a walk along the stream.”

  “Don’t stray from the sight of the guards,” ordered Loupe.

  Esclarmonde could no longer abide such impertinence. “I climbed this mount long before you were born! I don’t need your permission to go anywhere on it! The Catholics would leave us alone if you did not use this place as a bolt hole for your raids!”

  Raymond stepped between them. “If we don’t station a garrison—”

  “I never asked for armed protection!” Esclarmonde came within inches of Loupe’s pinched face. “We are prepared to depart this life when God decides.”

  “We are not!” said Loupe. “‘ I’ve had my fill of your self-righteous sanctity!”

  “Loupe!” chastened Chandelle. “Show some respect.”

  Loupe rounded on her old friend with a shout so vehement that the blind perfecta nearly fell. “And you’ve become lost in her madness! While our countrymen die to free you of invaders, you sit babbling nonsense with her!”

  “No one requires you to adopt our faith,” said Chandelle.

  “I cannot escape it! My mother and this aunt made certain of that!”

  Drawn by the shouts, the other perfectas rushed up the path.

  “Take them to the river,” ordered Esclarmonde. When Corba hesitated, fearful of leaving her alone with Loupe, Esclarmonde insisted, “Please do as I ask!” Corba had learned from hard experience that it was no use attempting to placate Esclarmonde when she had her hackles up, so she hurried with Chandelle and the other women down the pog. When the perfectas and soldiers were out of earshot, Esclarmonde turned on Loupe with a fury. “I’ll not hear you speak basely of your mother!”

  “I’m not one of your nuns who falls at your feet in obeisance!”

  Esclarmonde picked up one of the dropped arrows and forced Loupe to stare at its tip. “Phillipa gave her life to save us. You make a great display of defending this land. But you fight only to vent your bitterness.”

  “What do you know of love? You drove away the only man who—”

  “Enough!”

  “Loving that sun idol of yours is easy for you,” persisted Loupe. “You make him whatever you want him to be. He conveniently speaks to you in that ghost voice that no one else hears. Everyone is told to accept your rantings without question. Guilhelm was a man. But a mortal man has his own needs. And Hell should pay if his ever got in the way of yours.”

  Esclarmonde pressed her fists into the creases of her elbows, fearful of what she might do with them. “I made a choice. And I hurt the one I loved because of it. But it was a choice made from conviction, not fear.”

  “You think I’m afraid?”

  “Any animal can kill,” said Esclarmonde. “To place your freedom at risk is true bravery.”

  “I fight for your freedom!”

  “You fight to avoid what really frightens you.”

  “Nothing frightens me!”

  With a sharp angling of her head, Esclarmonde directed Loupe’s attention toward the battlements where Bernard Saint-Martin stood guard. “He does.”

  Loupe turned aside. “I have no time for that foolishness.”

  “Has he renewed his request to marry you?”

  “That’s none of your concern,” said Loupe.

  “First you assail me for avoiding the demands of this world. Now you wish me to do exactly that. I promised your mother I would look after you.”

  “God save us from your promises.”

  “Bernard is a good man. He has loved you since you were young. That is a gift you must not lightly dismiss.”

  “You swore off marriage. Why shouldn’t I?”

  “There will come a time when he won’t ask again. Don’t repeat the mistake that ... You are as obdurate and wilful as your father.”

  “My father fought for what he believed.”

  “And he lies unburied for it.”

  “Because of a war you caused!” reminded Loupe. “Don’t you understand? They’ve all died because of you!”

  For a fleeting moment, Esclarmonde saw Roger’s face in Loupe’s knotted features, blaming her again for every mishap of their existence. She rushed at Loupe but caught herself, distressed by her own boiling rage. She took a protective step back and demanded, “I want these soldiers off my mountain!”

  Esclarmonde was too exhausted from the quarrel to finish her walk to the stream. Pallid and fighting for breath, she returned to the temple alone and retired to her hut without a word to anyone. She collapsed to her pallet and fell into a fitful sleep. Soon she was enveloped by a recurring nightmare. In the vision, she emerged from her cell and found herself abandoned inside the chateau with the gates bolted shut. Left with no means of escape, she ran to the crown of the walls and prepared to make a suicidal leap, driven to the edge by an overwhelming loneliness and—

  Distant shrieks awoke her. Disoriented, she gathered her robe and rushed to the bailey. The sun was setting below the ramparts. How many hours had she slept? Corba was on her knees, hysterical and fighting to escape Raymond’s grasp. The wailing had drawn the Marquessa creeping from her hut.

  “They’ve taken her!” cried Corba. “She wanted to stay alone by the water while we picked berries!”

  Esclarmonde searched for Chandelle among the distraught faces converging on her. “Where were the guards?”

  Loupe broke through the keening rucks to punish her aunt with a lording stare. “Dismissed from their posts. On your orders.”

  Corba rushed to Raymond, who stood paralyzed. “Do something!”

  “What would you have me—”

  “Stop the monks from ...” Corba stifled a despairing scream.

  Loupe finished the aborted plea for Corba. “From bringing her before their tribunal? Is that what you want?”

  “I can’t live without her!”

  Loupe watched with grim satisfaction as the perfects and soldiers turned on Esclarmonde with impugning glares. “You want us to fight to save her?”

  “Yes, my God!” begged Corba. “Yes!”

  “But is that not contrary to your beliefs?” Loupe raised a taunting brow aimed at Esclarmonde. “To take up arms?”

  Corba bent low as if speared in the gut, undone by the reminder of her faith’s creed. “I’ll break apart if she’s taken from me.”

  Esclarmonde dropped her forehead into her hands in an effort to focus her wrenched thoughts. She could not fathom the terror that Chandelle was now suffering. Would God never stop testing her? There was none dearer to her than this goddaughter, but if she approv
ed a military operation, she would profane the teachings of the Master and the dictates of the Light. Her throbbing temples felt as if her skull was being drilled with a rod. Staggered by the blinding headache, she walked with Corba and Raymond a few steps from the others. “I cannot sanction it ... but I will not forbid it.”

  Corba fell to her knees and grasped Esclarmonde’s hand in gratitude. Raymond prepared to muster the men for the rescue attempt when Loupe stopped him with a thrust of her sword into the ground.

  “Chandelle is not the only one caught in their nets,” said Loupe to Corba. “Hundreds more of our people languish in their prisons. And more will die until we chase these monks from our land once and for all. I will do this deed. But only if all members of your faith bless it.”

  Blanched with consternation, Corba and the Cathars turned to Esclarmonde and Bertrand Marti for an indication of what they should do. Marti assessed the willingness of his flock to make the ultimate sacrifice. With eyes lowered in shame, he conceded, “We are no less hypocritical than the Roman monks if we cower behind these walls and allow others to fight and die for our beliefs. Either we must accept responsibility for sending these men to take up arms, or all of us should go forth to join Chandelle.”

  Esclarmonde’s spirit plummeted, sapping the strength from the thews in her legs. She knew that Castres would have found a way to convince them to avoid this snare of the Demiurge. But she could no longer marshal the resolve required to preach his pacifist discipline. In a voice drained of all hope, she allowed, “Each of you must choose as your conscience dictates.”

  Marti could not look at her directly. “We have tried the Bishop’s way and still the Romans break our bones. Mayhaps, for once, we must stand against the Evil One on His own field of battle.”

  One by one, the Cathars followed Marti’s lead and stepped forward to affirm their acceptance of the military raid. Many broke down and wept, certain that they would be returned to this world because they had surrendered to the demands of the flesh. Esclarmonde braced the teary-eyed Marti with a hand on his shoulder to assure him that she bore no ill will for his decision. She then turned and walked slump-shouldered toward the chapel to be alone.