Cathar

by Christopher Bland

  Blanche finished the sentence for me. ‘… body to Mathieu. That was the bargain. It was a price worth paying. Etienne realises that, and Stephanie will in time, and so will you.’

  ‘I don’t think I will. We both worshipped you, would have done anything for you, as you knew.’

  ‘That was courtly love. I was old enough to be your mother, far too old to be your lover. It was a gentle and harmless affection.’

  ‘Not once I had washed your feet and legs beneath the dovecote.’

  ‘I remember that too,’ Blanche replied. ‘It’s all a long time ago. I’d like you… not to forgive me, I’ve done nothing for you to forgive, only God can do that, but to understand.’

  I stood up, bowed, thanked her and left the house with the directions to Flaran and a purse full of money. I was stiff-necked and unreasonable, but recanting was one thing, sleeping with the Inquisitor another, a different kind of betrayal, coloured by my remembered passion for her. I thought Sybille had banished those images forever, but they had returned with a force that surprised and shocked me. And I made matters worse by thinking of her and the Inquisitor together.

  It was an easy day’s walk to the abbey and convent at Flaran. We were again in funds; Guillemette whistled in appreciation when she opened the purse.

  ‘Gold, not silver. This will take care of us for several months.’

  ‘Tainted money, Inquisition money,’ I said.

  ‘Gold is gold, and never tells whoever had it last or how they came by it. It’s repaying a little of what the crusaders took from Beaufort and Roqueville.’

  I stayed in the abbey guest house while Etienne and Guillemette went to see Stephanie and the baby. When they came back in the evening Etienne described Bertrand in loving detail and said Stephanie was the perfect mother. His blindness was no obstacle to detailed descriptions of the colour of the baby’s eyes, the pinkness of his skin, the brilliance of his smile. I felt great happiness for him, and a secret envy which I was careful to conceal.

  The next day I went with them to the convent and was able to see Bertrand for myself. He was a handsome child, and seemed happy to be patted and passed between the four of us.

  ‘Stephanie and I and Bertrand will go back to Barraigne,’ said Etienne. ‘We’ll make a life there. We hope you and Guillemette will come with us.’

  ‘I’ve nowhere else to go,’ said Guillemette. ‘I dare say I’ll be of some use.’

  I was uncertain. The three of us had been together for a long time.

  ‘I’ll come with you as far as Carcassonne and decide there. It’s a risk. We were sentenced to go to Compostela.’

  ‘They’ve got more important things to do than check up on the three of us.’

  By the time we reached Carcassonne I had decided that Barraigne was not for me. I doubted whether it could support yet another hungry mouth. The next day I walked the first mile of the journey with the four of them, Bertrand gurgling happily in a sling on Guillemette’s back, and we took our long and affectionate farewells.

  I went back into the city a single man, single eye, single arm, with a little money and no useful trade. I was alone. Alone, and ill equipped to survive in a cut-throat city like Carcassonne. I was used to routine – mornings in the tilt-yard or the archery butts, afternoons in the dovecote or by the stew pond. And during the two sieges we were on watch every eight hours. Until now I had been among friends.

  Carcassonne was a city full of thieves, vagabonds, mountebanks and beggars, any one of whom would have cheerfully cut my throat for a silver coin. The crusaders had laid waste the countryside for miles around, burning what they could not steal, and the refugees they had created were scrabbling to survive.

  I asked my innkeeper where I might borrow money; I was sensible enough not to tell him I wanted to deposit cash. I went to the man he recommended, Baruch the Jew.

  Baruch was famous in Carcassonne. He had converted, relapsed and avoided the stake by recanting a second time, persuaded by the Inquisitor after a lengthy debate. He smiled when he saw my gold.

  ‘That’s a tidy sum,’ he said, ‘Of course the law does not allow me to pay you interest, only guarantee safe keeping. And perhaps the present of a bolt of cloth when you reclaim your money.’

  I asked him about the Inquisitor.

  ‘He is a formidable man with a relentless intellect. He overwhelmed me with his logic, and I was a Talmudic scholar. He only uses torture when all else fails.’

  ‘He was quick enough to use it on us after Roqueville.’

  ‘I see you were one of the unlucky ones.’

  ‘Not as unlucky as the rest. They lost both their eyes.’

  Baruch hesitated, then continued.

  ‘Now they say he’s mellowed. Has a fancy woman in the Place des Pénitents. Converted her with his cock. Or perhaps it was the other way round.’

  The coarse phrase ended our conversation. I purchased a linen money belt in which I concealed enough money for a month, left the balance with Baruch and took my leave.

  I began to visit the taverns in the evenings, partly to seek out the company of other men and women, partly to find comfort in drink. Company was hard to come by, as I was a marked man. It soon became well known that I had kept my single eye in order to lead the sorry procession of knights from Roqueville to Montségur. That I had recanted after Montségur’s fall rather than burn did not bring me any closer to the men in the taverns, even though none of them admitted to being Cathar.

  Through force of circumstance I became a solitary drinker. The tavern I frequented was dirty, cheap and dangerous, a tumbledown shack in the village outside the city walls. They served watery beer, rotgut red wine and a fiery spirit that they distilled themselves. I drank all three in a planned succession to dull my senses and forget the past. I was unable to think about the future.

  In the second week I was attacked as I walked unsteadily back into the city. Two of my drinking companions had decided I was an easy target and followed me as I left. I had enough sense to keep my hand on my dagger – I had long abandoned Guillemette’s advice to rely on poverty and humility – and I heard them come up behind me in time to turn. They were poorly armed with a single small knife between them; I killed the first with a thrust under the ribs and the second man ran away.

  There was no law outside the city walls, and little enough within the city; the starveling body of the man I killed lay where I had left him, unmourned and uncollected, for several days. This served as a warning to others who might have sought to rob me, but it did not encourage other drinkers to seek me out as their companion.

  I retreated to the city and drank there in greater comfort. Carcassonne was beginning to recover its former energy. The Thursday market was crowded, and the countryside around was again beginning to produce enough vegetables, fruit and meat to satisfy those who could afford the prices. There were several merchants doing good business in textiles and leather, and even a stall selling relics from the Holy Land, although the old woman in charge had plainly never left Carcassonne in her life.

  There were many former crusaders in the city, mostly mercenaries from the north or from Catalonia. These men either no longer had enough money to return home, or had become used to a scavenging, transient life. Some were expecting another Crusade to begin, although there were few Cathars left to kill. After Montségur had fallen the smaller castles that were still intact swiftly came to terms.

  I found myself drawn to the Place des Pénitents, even though my motives were unclear. I was careful to avoid being seen by Blanche, although I managed to watch her from a distance in the Thursday market which she always visited in the middle of the day. I longed to speak to her, and yet had no idea what I wanted to say.

  I also watched the Inquisitor arrive to visit Blanche on a number of occasions, sitting with my beggar friends in the corner of the square until he left at dawn. This was a dangerous, self-imposed torture, fuelling my images of the two of them together. One of the beggars must have infor
med on me; I was visited in my lodgings one morning by two armed monks who took me in for questioning.

  ‘You are meant to be on your way to Compostela,’ the Inquisitor said to me. This was only the second time I had heard him speak; his last words to me had been ‘God is not mocked’. He was a formidable figure, robed in black, looking down on the accused from a throne-like chair on a dais. I was sentenced to a week in prison and told to leave the city by the end of the month.

  ‘You know the alternative if you do not comply?’ he asked me.

  Only too well, I thought, but said nothing; instead I nodded my assent and was taken to the cells.

  A week in prison was enough. Four of us shared a cell twelve feet square; the others were thieves, pimps or beggars, dirty, flea-ridden, fighting over the meagre rations we were given twice a day. It was unbearably hot during the day, freezing at night. I was glad to be let out after seven days; I went immediately to see Baruch and reclaimed half my gold.

  ‘I heard you were arrested,’ he said. ‘Not many are let out after only a week.’

  ‘I’m on my way to Compostela, the penance they imposed on me after Montségur. Keep the rest of my money safe until I return.’

  ‘It’s a long and arduous pilgrimage. What if you don’t come back?’

  ‘I want to collect my bolt of cloth. I’ll be back.’

  I spent the rest of the day in preparation for the journey, from which there now seemed no escape. Strangely, I had begun to welcome the pilgrimage, not because I believed I would receive numberless indulgences and years of exemption from Purgatory – I was too much Cathar to believe such nonsense – but I had been given a destination and a purpose. And I had never been out of the Languedoc.

  It was a journey of at least sixteen weeks from Carcassonne. I had my money safely stowed in my money belt, and my dagger, both of which, to my considerable surprise, had been returned to me when I left the prison. I bought a pair of good boots in the marketplace, a stout staff against dogs and vagabonds and a spare set of outer clothes. I found a good leather water bottle, a canvas sack and a hat to keep off the rain and the snow. I looked like the pilgrim the scallop shell on my cloak identified.

  On the way back to my lodgings I passed a little chapel dedicated to, among others, St Christopher. I needed the patron saint of travellers on my side and went in. It was empty, simple, with plain windows and a single wooden cross above the altar. There were no pews or chairs. I stood for a moment, then knelt and prayed – for forgiveness, for understanding, for my parents, for Sybille and Claire and Blanche. And for my dead comrades. I felt unburdened when I rose to my feet.

  I had one more self-imposed task before I left. I called on the house with the blue door; Blanche answered my knock.

  ‘I didn’t expect to see you again,’ she said.

  We sat once more in her downstairs room. I apologised for my intemperate words when we last met, and she told me how she regretted her clumsiness about Sybille.

  ‘Etienne and Stephanie couldn’t bring themselves to see me again,’ she said. ‘But they sent Guillemette and Bertrand to say goodbye.’

  ‘They’ll understand in time.’

  ‘Perhaps. Do you?’

  I thought long and hard, then looked at her and did not turn my gaze away.

  ‘I do understand. I know myself well enough to realise that jealousy, not righteousness, made me speak as I did.’

  Blanche said nothing. I took a deep breath and continued.

  ‘I want you to come with me to Compostela. I need company. It’s a pilgrimage, a good way of breaking the bonds that hold you here.’

  Blanche looked astonished, then laughed, laughed until I stopped looking offended and laughed with her.

  ‘You have changed. Two weeks ago you couldn’t bear to be in the same room. Now you want me as your…’

  ‘… companion,’ I said quickly.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘It’s an endearing offer. But the bonds that keep me here are strong. And breaking them would carry grave risks. I can’t say yes.’

  ‘I leave tomorrow at dawn from the Western Gate. I’ll wait for you there.’

  ‘Don’t wait too long – but I am very glad you called.’

  Blanche rose, gave me her hand, which I held in mine for a moment, raised it to my lips, and left.

  The next day at dawn I waited for half an hour at the gate, but Blanche did not come. I set off on the long journey to the Pyrenees and to Compostela on my own.

  *

  Blanche

  I HAD NOT EXPECTED to see Francois again. His revulsion at my conversion and my relationship with Mathieu was very clear. I in turn was angry with him, Etienne and Stephanie for their lack of understanding and sympathy.

  His call was a welcome surprise. We talked for a long time, and the barriers between us began to fall away. He told me about the last days at Montségur; I was aware of how young he was and how much he had suffered.

  Nevertheless, when he asked me to come with him to Compostela I was first astonished, then amused and, much later, thoughtful. I was living in the moment with Mathieu. I had deliberately given no thought as to where our relationship might lead. It was dangerous for both of us, and it was hard to see a happy ending. Mathieu could be excommunicated; I could be imprisoned or burned.

  When Francois spoke of ‘breaking the bonds’ he made me think about a future in which Mathieu and I were no longer together. To my relief Mathieu didn’t call that evening; I went to bed, but not to sleep. I was still awake at dawn, but I did not go to the Western Gate.

  *

  Mathieu

  AS I FEARED, Blanche’s trip to the convent, followed by the arrival of that strange trio in Carcassonne, was unsettling. The understanding between us had grown and was strong, but when Etienne and Stephanie refused to see her again Blanche began to question her growing affection for me.

  I had, of course, ordered the maiming of Etienne and Francois and the others. I believed it was a brutal necessity if the Catholic Church was to survive. It was now clear that heresy was in full retreat, for which my methods deserved much credit.

  I could say none of this to Blanche. She had recanted with apparent sincerity, but I was not foolish enough to believe that she did so other than under duress in order to see her daughter and grandson. Our relationship began with a… rape, no other word will do, and then gradually changed. Not to love, that is too strong a word, but affection based on a shared physical passion.

  My informers told me that Francois was spying on the house in the Place des Pénitents. I had him arrested and confined in prison for several days. I warned him that he had better be on his way to Compostela soon after his release if he wished to stay alive. I knew the others had gone back to Barraigne, and I wanted them all out of the way, so that my relationship with Blanche could resume its steady course.

  *

  The Bishop

  THE SPECTACULAR CONVERSION of Blanche de Roqueville had enormous resonance within the Languedoc, a blue-blooded Perfect being worth twenty Baruchs. Soon after I learned, at first through innuendo, later by Mathieu’s secretary, of the relationship between this unlikely pair.

  I was pleased. No longer could Mathieu look down on me from his high horse, no longer could he criticise me, albeit largely through looks rather than words, for my fondness for wine. And for women, although I tried to restrict that weakness to one or two visits a month. Unlike Mathieu; my spies told me he visited Blanche two or three times a week.

  She changed him for the better. He became far less stiff in my company, less censorious, less ascetic. And in due course he told me, as his confessor, everything.

  He wanted to go further; he told me he was about to contact Rome and asked to be released from his vows.

  ‘Don’t be a fool,’ I said. ‘They will never agree. They’ll make an example of you. And burn Blanche as a witch. Quieta non movere, my friend.’

  My advice was forceful,
and Mathieu did let sleeping dogs lie. His intellect was his worst enemy, and it was clear to me that he might crack under the strain. In the end it was Blanche who decided to end the relationship.

  Mathieu was called away to Toulouse for a convocation of Church dignitaries that lasted a week. I learned that Blanche had left him a long and affectionate note which suggested that she had gone to Barraigne.

  12

  Pilgrimage

  Francois

  IT TOOK ME a day or two to get over my disappointment that Blanche had not appeared at the Western Gate and had decided to stay in Carcassonne with the Inquisitor. It took longer for my feet to get used to the demands of the pilgrimage, but by the time I was two weeks into my journey my blisters were beginning to heal and I was walking ten or fifteen miles every day depending on the terrain. At first I seemed the only pilgrim, but once I had reached Toulouse there were small groups all along the way that formed and dissolved, providing company and advice about routes and way stations that welcomed pilgrims. Some were on horseback, some on mules; there was one elderly and infirm lady carried in a litter by her retainers, but most were on foot.

  I was able to choose my companions each day, but was careful not to form any permanent alliance, easily and politely done by leaving early the next morning. I often preferred to walk alone. I seemed to be the only pilgrim sentenced to Compostela as a punishment; although I would have liked to conceal this fact, my single arm and eye identified me to anyone from the Languedoc as the man from Roqueville.

  Once we had reached Le Puy we were joined by a stream of pilgrims from the north, including some from Germany. One pilgrim, Brother Simon, a friar from Lyon, was shocked when I admitted to knowing little about the saint I was walking towards. He made it his business to teach me.

  ‘He was James the son of Zebedee, one of two James among the disciples. Jesus called him and his brother John the “Sons of Thunder”. After the Resurrection he preached all around the Mediterranean, and was beheaded in Jerusalem by Herod Agrippa.’