Cathar

by Christopher Bland

  Pons grumbled at the prospect of a five-day journey on foot but accepted the logic.

  It took me several days to find my way through the labyrinth that had Pierre in jail at its centre. There were several clerks and jailers who were ready to receive the money, but I knew only a release order would do. I called on Baruch the Jew, and was relieved to find he had remained a sufficiently devout Catholic to stay alive.

  ‘I hold four hundred livres Tournois to your account,’ he said the moment he saw me at his door. ‘I am glad to see you are able to claim it.’

  As we went upstairs he said, ‘I heard the Inquisitor’s men had beaten you when they seized Blanche de Roqueville.’

  ‘They thought about killing me, but I wasn’t beaten, thanks to some friendly pilgrims. I got to Compostela.’

  ‘I congratulate you. You must be almost without sin. The Lady Blanche is back in the Places des Pénitents. They say the Inquisitor is very ill. I am happy to say the Inquisition has been very inactive of late. No burnings.’

  ‘Not many Cathars left to burn.’

  ‘There are still Jews, and witches, and sodomites. Luckily I am none of those things.’

  I told him why I was in Carcassonne, and came back the next day to hear the result of his enquiries. We ate in his room, which was full of pictures, manuscripts and bolts of cloth. We ate roast pork.

  ‘I make a point of eating pork as often as I can,’ Baruch said. ‘It means I cannot be a Jew. We’re the same, you and I, converts. In my case twice. Once at the point of the sword, the second time persuaded by the silver tongue of the Inquisitor.’

  ‘It was the fire that convinced me.’

  ‘I find my new faith remarkably attractive when I consider the alternative. I am a diligent attender at all their rituals, which I enjoy. They are nothing if not colourful, especially in the cathedral. And they have no knowledge of what goes on in my head.’

  ‘I’m the same.’

  ‘The rumour is that Perfects pay regular visits to Montaillou. Is that why they are holding Pierre Clergue?’

  ‘He’s been keeping back money from the Church.’

  ‘Much worse than heresy.’

  ‘I have the funds from his brother to get him out, if I could find the right person to authorise his release. Plenty of people want to take the money.’

  Baruch knew exactly whom I must see, what I should pay, and how I could guarantee Pierre’s release.

  ‘You go to the chief magistrate’s office, show him the money and wait there until Pierre Clergue is produced. With his fetters struck off. Here – take two bolts of silk. I’ve been able to put your money to work in the last three years.’

  Baruch’s advice was good. Pierre was produced the next morning, I handed over 20,000 sous to the magistrate, his fetters were struck off and we were free to go.

  Pierre was surprised and not particularly grateful to see me.

  ‘I expected my brother.’

  ‘He thought it best to stay in Montaillou. Two Clergues in prison wasn’t a risk worth taking.’

  ‘What took you so long? I’ve been in prison for almost twelve weeks.’

  ‘You must ask your brother that.’

  We went back to my inn, round to the stables and I gave him his mule.

  ‘Isn’t that Beatrice de Planissoles’s horse?’ looking at the gelding in the adjacent stall, then looking at me. He knew Beatrice well.

  ‘It is.’

  ‘I’ll take him.’

  ‘No, I’d look foolish on a mule, wouldn’t know how to control him. He is yours; you’re used to each other.’

  Pierre didn’t care for this argument, but was in no position to disagree. He left for Montaillou after a silent meal. Three months in jail, the same jail where they had locked me up for a week years before, had made Pierre thin and hungry, though he bore no signs of torture. I gave him half a cheese and a little money for his journey, and received a reluctant grunt of thanks in return. His displeasure at our new relationship was clear.

  I told him I had business to attend to in Carcassonne and would return to Montaillou at the end of the month. In fact I had finished my business with Baruch and was intent on seeing Blanche again, to whom I felt strong ties of loyalty and affection, although no longer love, courtly or carnal.

  I felt able to walk around Carcassonne freely; I had my Compostela certificate safe in an inner pocket. I used some of my livres Tournois to buy good clothes, a new dagger and a sword, and as a result looked less like a shepherd than when I had arrived in the town. I went to the Thursday market to buy a horse, but they were a rough lot that day, not up to my weight, beyond mark of mouth, barely sound and without any signs of breeding.

  I extended my stay in my lodgings and visited the taverns round the centre of town to discover more about Blanche and the Inquisitor. Although it was clear the Inquisition was less active – as Baruch had suggested, there hadn’t been a burning for well over a year – old habits of circumspection die hard. It was not easy to find useful information.

  I did find something in those taverns that surprised me. I had become well known, as had all the knights from Roqueville. There was an inaccurate, heroic ballad celebrating the march to Montségur and our part in its gallant defence. The ballad was only sung in one or two taverns with Cathar sympathies, and only late in the evening, but there I was treated as a hero.

  I soon gave up explaining that all I had done was to lead a group of blind and maimed men on a long and depressing march, and accepted compliments with a good grace. Several late-night drinkers insisted on touching my stump for good luck, and I began to feel for a moment like a living Cathar relic. Which indeed I was, although I was careful to go to church regularly.

  My dilemma was solved when Baruch told me over dinner that the Inquisitor had died two days earlier.

  ‘He had a fatal wasting disease,’ he said. ‘The Church have claimed his body, taken it to his old abbey of Flaran for burial. He won’t be mourned by many.’

  ‘Not by me. I’m one-armed and one-eyed thanks to him.’

  ‘Nor by me. Although I had a healthy respect for his intellect, even if it took him to some cruel places. You know what he said after the fall of Puylaurens? They were unable to distinguish between Cathar and Catholic prisoners. “Burn them all,” he said. “God will recognise his own.”’

  ‘That’s the man I knew.’

  ‘And yet Lady Blanche stayed with him for his last years and nursed him through his final illness.’

  ‘His monks took her away from the pilgrimage, and from me, and brought her back to Carcassonne by force. She had nowhere else to go. Her daughter and son-in-law had disowned her.’

  ‘Nevertheless there was something between them. The Inquisition became far less fierce when she came back. And now she is a rich, or at least a landed, woman again.’

  ‘How did that happen?’

  ‘Partly through me. I advanced her money to fight for the restitution of the Roqueville lands. I acted as her advocate. I argued that it was a powerful and proper incentive to conversion if expropriated property was returned to its original owners. And in this case the Bishop agreed.’

  ‘Has she been back to Roqueville?’

  ‘I have no idea. I hear you were looking for a horse at the Thursday fair. Complete waste of time. Try my friend at Montcalm, outside the city. He usually has something decent to sell, took some good horses off crusaders who had gambled or whored their money away. He’s not cheap.’

  17

  Back to Barraigne

  Francois

  I WENT TO SEE the horse dealer in Montcalm, but first I called on Blanche. She was astonished to see me; we hugged each other, she cried and we talked until late over several glasses of good wine.

  ‘I completed my pilgrimage, reached Compostela. I have many thousand days’ remission from Purgatory, and a certificate.’

  ‘I had no news of you from the moment I was taken back to Mathieu. I couldn’t ask him about you.’
r />   ‘I travelled through Spain for several years buying and selling horses. Ended up in Montaillou. I’m a shepherd now, no longer a knight.’

  ‘Much more useful.’

  Blanche got up to light the fire, which had already been laid. She was still beautiful, but now she looked worn, older than her years. When she sat down she refilled her glass, then said, ‘You know that Mathieu died three days ago,’ and as I began to speak she went on. ‘No need to say anything. You only saw that fierce and unrelenting side of him.’

  ‘I and many others.’

  ‘Francois, I know. But he was different when I returned – no burnings, no savage sentences, no exhumations. He continued to argue and achieved enough conversions to keep everyone happy. And he was a good lover.’

  Blanche laughed when she saw the shocked look on my face.

  ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. But it’s true.’

  I wanted to change the subject.

  ‘Any news from Barraigne?’

  ‘I might as well be dead as far as Stephanie and Etienne are concerned. I haven’t seen my grandson since Flaran. I send little presents of money and wine, which I suppose get there safely, but they are never acknowledged. And now I have to move out of this house within the week. Mathieu’s body has been taken to Flaran. They won’t let me attend the burial.’ She began to cry. I got up from my chair, tried and failed to comfort her and promised to come back the next day.

  Early the following morning I rode out to Montcalm and found Baruch’s friend, a horse dealer much as I had been in Spain. He trotted half a dozen beasts in front of me, and I bought the best after cantering him round the field. He was an eight-year-old, sound in wind and limb, the dealer said; it was an expression I had often used myself, in most cases truthfully. I paid a fair price after a little haggling and rode him back into Carcassonne.

  When I called again on Blanche, later than planned, she asked me to sit down.

  ‘I have a favour to ask you.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can.’

  ‘I now own Roqueville, thanks to Baruch’s advocacy and money. I’d like you to escort me there, see if anything has survived.’

  I thought for a moment, realised Pierre Clergue would already have had a week to reinstate himself in both Beatrice’s affections and her bed, and agreed.

  It was a two-day, unhurried ride. We found a tavern in Castelnau, shared a chaste bed and arrived at Roqueville that afternoon.

  It was a desolate place, one that had bad memories for both of us at the end. I had lost an arm and an eye there; Blanche had seen her son killed and his body burned, along with the bodies of many of her retainers and friends. The earth was still black where the crusaders had built their great fire in the courtyard and the outer walls were mostly demolished. When we went into the keep pigeons scattered out of the windows, and the floor of the Great Hall was covered in bird droppings. There were signs of rats, no signs of humans. One corner of the roof had caved in, and rainwater had caused several of the floor beams to rot.

  We stood in the Great Hall for a moment, remembering the splendour of its feasts.

  ‘We celebrated for a week when Stephanie and Etienne were married,’ said Blanche. ‘Now look at the place – you’d think it had been abandoned fifty years ago. No wonder the Church didn’t fight very hard to keep it.’

  ‘Was there a steward?’

  ‘I don’t know. If there was he didn’t know his job or want to stay.’

  We rode down to my dovecote, now a tumbled pile of stones and wood. I remembered washing Blanche’s feet there, but didn’t remind her. The fields around were uncultivated, and the little village by the river was deserted.

  ‘The whole place has gone to ruin,’ Blanche said. ‘It’s a lifetime’s work for a young man to restore its glories.’ She was silent for a moment, then looked at me. ‘Would you take it on?’

  ‘It’s not mine, it’s Stephanie’s. And the happy memories have been blotted out by what happened after we lost our water and were betrayed. I’m a shepherd now.’

  We cantered down the valley to Beaufort, which was in no better state. There were signs that somebody was living in the little castle, but they didn’t appear. We went on to the stone that marked my parents’ grave, dismounted and said the Lord’s Prayer.

  ‘They dug up their bodies and burned what was left.’

  On our way back past Roqueville it began to rain. We hadn’t seen a human or an animal all afternoon.

  ‘Now where do we go?’ asked Blanche.

  ‘To Barraigne.’

  As we approached Barraigne, Blanche grew increasingly nervous and critical.

  ‘The place is almost as run-down as Roqueville,’ she said. ‘They haven’t done much to improve things.’

  ‘You should have seen it when we first returned. It was far worse than Roqueville, worse than my old home at Beaufort. Remember your son-in-law is blind in both eyes. They have replanted the vines, and they look healthy enough.’

  We had pulled up our horses on a small hill half a mile from Barraigne. The meadow in front of us was uncultivated, but between it and the walls of the little fort vines had been planted in neat rows right up to the walls and stretched round the fort as far as we could see. Their leaves looked green and glossy from a distance, and as we rode up to the gate between the vines we could see that they were free from mildew and rust and bore many clusters of grapes, although they were still green.

  ‘You go first,’ said Blanche. ‘I don’t know whether they will be glad to see me. You’re sure of a welcome.’

  I took her advice and rode into the courtyard, disturbing, I was pleased to see, many pigeons. The courtyard was cobbled, and a horse stuck an inquisitive nose out of a low range of stables on the left. In the corner of the courtyard a woman was playing with three children. It was Guillemette. She stood up, leaving the children, ignoring their protests and almost pulling me off my horse to embrace me.

  I felt equally moved. ‘It’s been years since I left the three of you here. You haven’t changed.’

  It was true; she had always looked older and been wiser than her years.

  ‘Stephanie and Etienne will be overjoyed to see you. She’s in the Great Hall, Etienne’s checking on last year’s wine.’

  We went inside, leaving the children playing, and Stephanie’s embrace was as warm as Guillemette’s. Until I said, ‘I have Blanche with me. She’s waiting outside. The Inquisitor died five days ago.’

  Stephanie’s face changed when I mentioned her mother’s name. ‘That woman is not welcome here. She can go back to Carcassonne, or to hell, for all I care.’

  ‘Then I must leave too. You seem to have forgotten that you and Etienne would not be together but for her.’

  ‘She didn’t have to sleep with him.’

  ‘That was the bargain. She did the best she could. And why do you think Etienne’s sentence, which was the same as mine, was never enforced?’

  The last was a guess, and at that moment Etienne came in. I embraced him clumsily, laughing as I did so – there is something comic, as well as tragic, when two one-armed men with one eye between them try to hug each other.

  ‘I’m not staying. I’ve Blanche with me outside the gates, and Stephanie doesn’t want her here. Even though the Inquisitor is dead.’

  ‘I’m not unhappy to hear that,’ said Etienne. ‘Of course Blanche is welcome here. She’s your mother, for the love of God. Bring her in, bring her in.’

  ‘But she’s a harlot, a prie—’

  ‘Enough. I said she is welcome here, and you’ll have to make the best of it. If my wounds and Francois’ have healed so can yours.’

  He and I went outside and found Blanche in the courtyard, dismounted, playing with her grandson. She looked up at Etienne and said, her voice unsteady, ‘I’ll go away if Stephanie doesn’t want to see me. I heard what she said.’

  ‘We both want both of you here. My mother died two years ago. The children need a grandmother.’<
br />
  We went inside, little Bertrand nuzzling Blanche’s shoulder, the other two girls holding Guillemette’s hands. Stephanie stood up, tried to maintain her stern look, and then collapsed sobbing into her mother’s arms, the child almost squashed between them.

  I stayed for three days, telling them about my pilgrimage, my long journey across Spain and my new life as a shepherd in Montaillou.

  ‘I’m rich these days, with my own house and over two hundred sheep. We make the best cheese in the valley. I’ve saved one round for you to taste. The rest I used as bribes.’

  ‘We’ll drink some of last year’s wine,’ and I watched as Etienne, without a stick or a handhold, walked out into the courtyard, reappearing with a large wineskin.

  ‘I’ve learned painfully every cobblestone and sharp corner in Barraigne,’ he said on his return. ‘And I learned how to make decent wine by trial and error. The first year we threw away, the second we drank ourselves and the third we sold well in the Carcassonne market. Here, what you think?’

  ‘It’s as good as my cheese,’ I said, and it was. We ate and drank well for three days, Etienne and I doing most of the talking, while Blanche contented herself with the children, competing with Guillemette for their affection, a competition which she easily, if unfairly, won. And by the third day Stephanie had come to terms with her mother, no longer rejecting her embraces, although they were not returned with quite the same warmth.

  Etienne walked with me to the gate. ‘I hope you look after your pigeons,’ I said.

  ‘Why don’t you stay and look after them for me? Montaillou sounds a strange and dangerous place to me.’

  ‘Strange, but not dangerous. I’ve just obtained the release of Pierre Clergue from the Carcassonne jail. That gives me some protection. And I need to get back to my sheep.’

  Which was true. I also wanted to get back to Beatrice. We parted with another clumsy embrace, we agreed to exchange wine for cheese every autumn, I mounted and rode off. I was impressed, not only by the vineyard and the wine, but by the way Etienne was clearly master of Barraigne. I no longer had any fears for Blanche.