I had time to think. Think about my betrayal; the Inquisition would not have come for me without some evidence or a denunciation. Think about my disregard for Francois’s advice to leave Montaillou, about my earlier relationship with Pierre Clergue, about the folly of allowing Authie to console my steward on his deathbed.
I had time to think about the charges that would be laid against me, and to prepare some kind of defence. If I were to escape the stake I had to deny that Authie had come to Montaillou and spent the night under my roof. I would be forced to admit that I had been Pierre Clergue’s mistress for several years. There were too many witnesses, including Clergue himself.
Beyond that I would admit nothing. After three weeks in the cell I reached the point that I wanted them to come for me, to charge me, if only so I could hear the sound of a human voice again, however hostile.
*
Francois
AFTER MY INITIAL shock at Beatrice’s arrest I went to see Sicre to find out what he knew. He was hard to track down; I eventually found him in his cousin’s house in Camurac. I went in without warning, my sword drawn, to find Sicre sitting there alone. He rose out of his chair, and as he reached for the dagger on the table in front of him I struck his arm hard with the flat of my sword, hard enough to hear the bone crack, then swept the dagger onto the floor.
‘What did you tell the men from Carcassonne about Beatrice?’ I asked. My sword was at his throat, and he could see I was ready to kill him. He was holding his damaged right hand with his left, breathing in short gasps.
‘I told them nothing,’ he said. ‘And I’m under their protection. You’ll regret this.’
It was an obvious and foolish contradiction. I pricked his throat hard enough to draw blood and he began to talk. Much of what he said was a patchwork of lies and half-truths, intended to show him in a favourable light, but he admitted to telling the Inquisition about Authie’s night in the castle and about Beatrice’s relationship with Pierre Clergue. He took some pleasure in describing that story.
‘I discovered the pair of them fornicating behind the altar,’ he said, hoping for my discomfiture. ‘I felt bound to tell them about such desecration.’
‘No doubt you were motivated by your faith,’ I said. I thought of killing him there, and decided he had already done his damage. ‘You’re not worth killing. The whole world knows of your treachery. You were a guest at Beatrice’s table, you were a professed Cathar, and now look at you.’
He was weeping as I left the room, partly through pain, partly because he knew his life would always be in danger. Four of Montaillou’s men and women had been burned at the stake, and many more had died in prison, because of his treachery.
I left the next day for Carcassonne without a clear plan in my mind, but conscious I could achieve nothing in Montaillou. I went straight to see Baruch the Jew, who was glad to see me.
‘What have you heard about Beatrice?’ I asked him, leaving my glass of wine untouched.
‘Nothing,’ he replied. ‘The Inquisition has clamped down on loose talk, and most of the prison guards are too frightened to reveal who is in their jail. But I am Baruch the Christian now, not Baruch the Jew. Quite a respectable lawyer, no longer a detested usurer, although a few Christians still come to me for money. I’ll see what I can discover.’
Two days later he sent a messenger to my inn, and I called on him a second time.
‘She hasn’t been tortured,’ he said. ‘She has confessed to having sexual congress with the priest of Montaillou, Pierre Clergue. But she has refused to admit to being Cathar or to harbouring Authie. She claims she was a regular attender at the Montaillou church, both before and after Clergue left, took Communion and confessed her sins regularly.’
‘What will they do to her?’
‘The Inquisition could try her as a heretic, and if she is found guilty then she will burn.’ Baruch was not a man to mince his words, and either did not notice or ignored the look on my face as he spoke. I had already lost a wife to the flames, and he seemed to be telling me they were likely to burn my lover.
‘What can I do?’
‘Very little. The secular judges are no longer taking bribes, and the Inquisition have never been venal. You can use your money, through me and some friends in the prison, to get Beatrice out of solitary confinement and provide her with decent food and clothes. That’s all money can buy in Carcassonne these days. You may be allowed to visit her.’
‘So she will burn?’
‘Not necessarily. They would burn Authie if they could catch him. But unless they can prove Beatrice was Cathar they may have to settle for lesser charges. If she is tried by the secular arm I can argue in her defence.’
‘What are the arguments?’
‘I have a month to think of something. They won’t try her in a hurry. Meanwhile, let me make arrangements for her comfort and for a visit from us both.’
Baruch’s dispassionate analysis was both comforting and depressing. He was not a man to raise false hopes, yet he also made it clear that he was ready to act on Beatrice’s behalf. I had great confidence in the power of his intellect and told him so. He looked pleased, smiled and said, ‘Your praise is welcome, though I must remind you that I was comprehensively out-argued by the Inquisitor.’
‘That was over matters of doctrine, not law. You were able to convince them to release Roqueville and its land to Blanche.’
‘True. I am not sure they have yet forgiven me for that. We’ll see.’
Later that week Baruch arranged for Beatrice to be moved to better accommodation in the prison. He argued that no charges had yet been brought against her, that she had confessed and cooperated, and she was a noblewoman, the widow of a crusader and a cousin of the Comte de Foix. As always in the Languedoc, it was her lineage that was the most powerful argument.
‘She’s been moved thanks to her blue blood and five livres Tournois to the jailer,’ said Baruch. ‘The trial will take place in three weeks’ time. The Inquisition have let her go to the civil court to be tried for fornication with a priest. And it will be a public, well-attended trial, which means they are confident of a conviction. They may intend to make an example of her. Although, God knows’, and here Baruch crossed himself, smiling as he did so, ‘there are few enough Cathars left alive and unrecanted to learn very much from whatever happens to Beatrice de Planissoles.’
‘She’s confessed. They are sure to find her guilty. What will her sentence be?’
‘She won’t burn. She could be sentenced to The Wall, as much as ten years’ solitary confinement on bread and water in a cell about the size of this table. Not many last longer than two or three years. She could withdraw her confession, but she hasn’t been tortured, so they are unlikely to believe that it was other than genuine. As, of course, it was. They plan to call Sicre as their main witness. Luckily Pierre Clergue and his brother are both dead. They lasted less than a year in The Wall.’
I put my face in my hands and wept. Baruch’s unvarnished words were too much for me to be able to retain my composure. He let me weep for a minute or two, then put his hand on my shoulder.
‘She hasn’t been found guilty or sentenced yet. Do you know where she kept the deeds to her properties?’
‘I do not. They are unlikely to save her. They will confiscate her lands in any case. I should have killed Sicre when I had the chance.’
‘You’d be surprised what legal documents can do. But first we need to find them. We are allowed to pay her a visit tomorrow.’
I spent an unhappy night thinking about a future without Beatrice. Until then I had thought only of our hours of pleasure together, aware that when I first met her I was sharing her affections with a man I feared and disliked. She had banished Clergue from her bed easily enough; I had always thought she might do the same to me. So I had made a conscious effort to restrain my feelings for her, careful to protect myself against rejection. That was now no longer possible. It was also too late.
The jail
in Carcassonne was as grim as I remembered: grey, damp, oppressive. I had managed to survive there for a week; Beatrice had been in solitary confinement for three times as long. And she was a woman who was used to comfort, warmth, good food and wine. By the time I had been jailed I had been through two sieges and was hardened and better prepared for that kind of ordeal.
The jailer locked and unlocked three sets of doors, taking us up a winding stair to the top of the jail’s square tower.
‘That’s a good sign,’ Baruch whispered. ‘The higher the better. As you know.’
The jailer opened a final heavy iron door into what was a room, not a cell. Beatrice was sitting in a chair as we entered. She rose and put her arms around me, holding me tight, and I could feel how painfully thin she had become.
‘I didn’t know whether you would visit me,’ she said. ‘I paid no attention to your good advice, and look where that got me. The jailer told me it was Baruch who had arranged for me to move to the top of the tower.’
‘I’m proud of you,’ I said, kissing the top of her head. ‘One week in those cells was enough for me. You’ve survived three.’
‘I wouldn’t have lasted much longer. And I confessed to everything except being Cathar and sheltering Authie. What do you think they will do to me?’
I stopped Baruch from giving his dispassionate analysis. ‘You’re to be tried by the civil courts. Baruch can represent you. He wants to know…’
‘… where all the deeds by which you hold your castle and lands are kept,’ Baruch said.
Beatrice looked surprised. ‘My title isn’t being challenged. They’ll steal my land anyhow. All those documents are in a locked box in my chamber. I keep the key separately under the big candlestick.’
‘Francois must go there and bring them to me. We don’t have much time. And if you encounter Sicre and can persuade him…’ Baruch didn’t finish the sentence.
We spent another ten minutes with Beatrice, who showed us, almost proudly, round the room. She had a table and chair, a bed, a bible, a washstand with a bowl and ewer, and her old clothes had been returned. A corner of the room had been screened, where I assumed there was a chamber pot. I didn’t check.
‘I can survive in these conditions,’ Beatrice said. ‘Stand on the chair and you can see over the whole of Carcassonne.’
Baruch, I could tell, was about to explain the probability of The Wall, when fortunately the jailer entered and escorted us out, but not before a final embrace from Beatrice, who kissed me with a warmth and passion which I returned. After a couple of loud coughs from Baruch and an impatient rattling of his keys by the jailer I gently prised loose her arms.
‘I need to get to Montaillou. I’ll be away for three or four days. The black iron box in your chamber, the key under the big candlestick, the one by the window?’
Beatrice nodded, her eyes full of tears, and we left the room. We walked down the winding staircase, my head spinning with the realisation that this was the first time we had ever kissed, although we had been the most intimate and ingenious of lovers. As we went back to my inn I urged Baruch to shelter Beatrice from the possible severity of her sentence. He looked surprised.
‘I always assume it is best to tell the unvarnished truth,’ he said.
‘Not in Beatrice’s case. She won’t survive The Wall.’
‘Very well. Let us see what those documents have to offer.’
I pressed Baruch to tell me why they might be useful. He replied that it was impossible to tell until he had seen them.
I left Carcassonne that afternoon. I had hired a second, strong horse from the man at Montcalm and I made good time. As Beatrice had told me, the documents were in the iron box and the key was under the candlestick. One look at them made me realise they provided me with no clues. On vellum or parchment, most with a heavy red wax seal stamped on the bottom with coats of arms that I did not recognise, they were in Latin, a language with which I had always struggled. I had to hope Baruch knew what he was doing.
Once I had located the deeds I went in search of Arnaud Sicre for the second time. There was no shortage of information from the villagers about his movements; hatred of his betrayal of so many of the men and women of Montaillou outweighed their fear of the new magistrate and rector. He had moved closer to Montaillou, to Aubiet, a hamlet less than three miles away.
I took Andre Belot with me. Beatrice, at my suggestion, had appointed him as her new steward. The double yellow crosses that three members of his family wore were the result of Sicre’s information, and he was as eager as I was for revenge.
We found Sicre in the poorest house in Aubiet. He had a single, sleepy guard whom we were able to disarm without much resistance. Sicre on this occasion made no attempt to reach for a weapon. He held out his right arm, now bound in a crude splint, and said, ‘This is your work. You’ll find it easy to kill me.’
That had been my intention, but I found it impossible to murder a defenceless man, although Andre showed no signs of any such scruples.
‘You burned my aunt, imprisoned my sister,’ he said. ‘A quick death is better than you deserve.’
I restrained him with some difficulty.
‘We’ll take him back to Montaillou and keep him in the castle jail until the trial is over. Then the village can do what it likes with him.’
Sicre looked relieved, Andre disappointed. We waited until dark, then returned to Montaillou and locked Sicre in the castle jail. The jail was rarely used, and as uncomfortable as anything Carcassonne had to offer. We were not seen; Montaillou after dark was always deserted, and only the magistrate’s men would have taken any interest in what we were doing.
‘You are his jailer, not his executioner,’ I said to Andre. ‘Feed him bread and water twice a day. It’s what Beatrice has lived on for three weeks. And you may kill him if he tries to escape.’ I left the next morning, unsure whether the two saddlebags would provide any help for Beatrice. My own horse had gone lame on the journey, so I had to rely on the hireling from Montcalm to carry me and a mule for the saddlebags. I took the precaution of bringing several cheeses for Baruch, for Beatrice and for bribes.
The journey back took a day longer than expected, as my horse cast a shoe and it took me a morning to find a blacksmith. I went straight to Baruch and tethered my horse and mule to a post outside his house; he had no stables and went everywhere either on foot or on a borrowed mule. His manservant showed me upstairs to a large room in which almost every surface – tables, chairs, window seats – was covered in manuscripts or documents. Formerly we had met in a room on the ground floor which was full of the fabrics he dealt in. I told him the room looked like a monastery library.
‘When the Capuchins closed Mont de Ferrat they were more interested in money than in letters, and I bought their entire library for – well, let us say a very reasonable amount. I expected you two days ago. Let me see what you have found, what treasures are in your saddlebags.’
He cleared a space on the centre table by sweeping the documents that covered it onto the floor. I emptied the contents of both saddlebags on the table, expecting him to look daunted.
‘There must be something here,’ he said. ‘Help me to arrange them in the order they were sealed.’
‘They are all in Latin,’ I said. ‘How good is yours?’
‘Excellent, excellent, of course. What did you expect? Occitan? Hebrew? I read Latin as well as I speak it, which is better than most monks, and certainly better than any other lawyer in the Languedoc.’
In a lesser man this would have appeared boastful, but Baruch was never concerned with making an impression.
It took us the rest of the day to sort through over one hundred deeds, wills, judgements, and the occasional letter; by the time we had finished the already dusty air of Baruch’s book room smelled of the strange, musky odour of documents that had lain undisturbed in Beatrice’s black box for many years.
Baruch was particularly interested in documents with seals, and put them
aside in a separate small pile. One or two of the seals were separated from their ribbons.
‘That makes them useless. You should have taken more care,’ he said.
‘You told me to hurry.’
‘I did. I assumed you would treat them with respect,’ then, seeing the crestfallen look on my face, said, ‘but we may have enough.’
He looked again at each of the deeds with attached seals, humming to himself as he used a magnifying glass to inspect the seals closely. One of these gave him particular pleasure, to such an extent that he put the document down and did a little dance of triumph, kicking aside several books as he did so. It was an incongruous and encouraging sight.
‘Deo gratias, Deo gratias, as we Christians say. I lit several candles to St Anthony in the hope we would find something like this.’
His pleasure was unfeigned, although I wasn’t sure whether to believe him about the candles.
‘Why is that seal so special?’
‘Can’t you see? It’s the seal of the King of Aragon. Although everything will depend on the contents of the deed it is attached to. Luckily it wasn’t one of those you shook loose. Leave me to read through all of them – unless you’d like to stay and read alongside me.’
He knew perfectly well that was an invitation I couldn’t accept.
‘I might as well challenge you to combat with lance and horse,’ I said, nettled by his words in spite of myself. ‘I’m a knight. I can ride, couch a lance, fight with sword and shield, fire off five crossbow bolts in three minutes.’
‘All very useful in certain circumstances.’
‘And I can herd sheep, deliver a lamb, kill a wolf, and I make the best cheese in the Languedoc. I brought you some,’ and I produced a round of mature cheese from the bottom of the second saddlebag. Baruch was fond of his food.
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