‘There are none in Montaillou.’
‘The Inquisition has triumphed over both our religions. In my case, by the power of argument,’ and he gave a little smile as he said those words. ‘In most cases, by conquest, by torture, and by the stake. I find my new religion completely ruthless in pursuing its enemies.’
‘And completely successful. Although there may be one or two Perfects left.’
‘They burned Pierre Authie in Toulouse. They are still looking for his brother. He is rumoured to be alive and preaching where he can in the Languedoc.’
‘Guillaume Authie came to Montaillou and consoled Alamande Guilabert on her deathbed.’
‘They were a strange pair, the Clergues brothers. Almost as ruthless as the Inquisition in the way that they controlled Montaillou.’
‘They were ruthless, it’s true. But they were genuine Cathars and allowed their version to flourish in our village. This was their undoing, and the undoing of many others in the end. We were lucky to escape, and we all feel safer now.’
‘As do I,’ said Baruch, getting out of his chair. ‘You’ll forgive an old man who needs his sleep. I am very happy you called. God be with you.’
I presented him with one of my cheeses, he gave me a bolt of heavy purple cloth for a cloak in return, and we went back to our inn.
As we approached Barraigne the next day I could see the vineyards were more extensive than before. It was early autumn, and the grapes had already been picked.
‘I thought Barraigne was almost derelict from the way you described it,’ said Beatrice. ‘The vines are well looked after, the walls are in good repair and their flag is flying.’
‘Etienne is proud of his flag, his six quarterings. And why not? He’s even prouder of his wine-making.’
There was the same alert sentry, who on this occasion recognised me (not a difficult task) and opened the gates to our little convoy. Etienne, Stephanie and the children came out to meet us, and I presented Beatrice for their inspection.
Stephanie looked at Beatrice with a keen eye, but was mollified when Beatrice said how handsome Bertrand and his little sisters were. Hugues stabled our horses and mules, and as we went into the Great Hall Beatrice said, ‘Francois has told me what Barraigne was like when you arrived. How hard you must have worked to make the place so splendid.’
Stephanie enjoyed the open flattery.
‘I’m sorry we felt the journey would have been too much for our twins.’
‘Twins?’ said Stephanie and Etienne together. ‘We hadn’t heard. Our congratulations. Come, we’ll drink our best red wine over dinner to celebrate.’
‘Where is Blanche?’ I asked.
Stephanie looked sad. ‘She’s very ill. She hasn’t left her bed for a month. She has the wasting sickness, finds it difficult to eat or drink, talks very little. Visit her in the morning with Etienne. Don’t be surprised if she doesn’t recognise you.’
This was sombre news, but not enough to prevent us enjoying our dinner and admiring Etienne’s wine and my cheese.
‘They complement each other perfectly,’ said Etienne. ‘I propose a toast – to wine-making and cheese-making.’
‘And to the King of Aragon,’ said Beatrice.
The next morning Stephanie took me to one side, congratulated me on my choice of a wife and the birth of the twins, then said in a worried voice, ‘Blanche, in her lucid moments, wants to see Guillaume Authie. She wants to be consoled.’
‘And the Endura?’
‘And the Endura. She won’t last much longer, eats and drinks very little as it is. I don’t know what to do. It’s hard to ignore my mother’s dying wish.’
‘Hard indeed. I can’t advise you. But I’m sure you will do the right thing.’
Stephanie took my hand and pressed it hard, then kissed me quickly on the cheek.
Later that morning Etienne and I went up to see Blanche. I had been warned, but even so was not prepared for the sunken cheeks, the withered, stick-like arms lying on the light blanket, her once beautiful hair white, sparse, the scalp visible here and there. She opened her eyes as we came into the room.
‘It’s Francois de Beaufort come to see you,’ said Etienne.
Blanche frowned, turned her head with painful difficulty to look at me, then smiled, a smile that transformed her face and made it beautiful once more.
‘My true knight, my fellow pilgrim,’ she said, lifting her hand a little off the blanket. I took her hand and pressed it to my lips. She closed her eyes again and Etienne took her other hand in his. I found it impossible to speak; we sat there for several minutes, then, quite quietly, I began to sing her troubadour’s song, Etienne joining in, and as it ended, I cannot find another one as fair, I could feel the gentle, returned pressure of her hand on mine.
We left a few moments later, Etienne saying to me as we went down the stairs, ‘She wants to see Authie. She wants to be consoled.’
‘Stephanie told me. I couldn’t advise her what to do.’
We stayed at Barraigne for two more days, Beatrice talking to Stephanie and her daughter, I walking round the vineyards with Etienne and teaching young Bertrand how to cock and fire a crossbow quickly.
‘I can’t demonstrate, as I didn’t bring my extension,’ and I explained how that worked.
‘Five in three minutes, my father said.’
I laughed. ‘Perhaps in my prime. I’d be slower now. But still accurate, which is more important than speed.’ I congratulated Bertrand on installing the projecting eaves of tin around his dovecote.
‘You were right,’ he said, looking pleased. ‘It really works. We’ve had no more trouble with rats since. We lose the occasional pigeon to hawks, that’s all.’
26
The Consolation
Francois
WE LEFT BARRAIGNE early the next morning, sending Hugues ahead, his mules laden with full wineskins.
‘They are patient beasts,’ Hugues said. ‘Perhaps they thought the return journey would be easier once we had taken the cheeses off their backs.’
‘One wineskin weighs as much as two cheeses,’ I said. ‘It works out at about the same load. They are beasts of burden, after all. We feed them well, and their normal work, a weekly trip up to the mountain pastures, isn’t a lot to ask. You’re light enough, your mule is the lucky one.’
It was an easy journey, and shorter as we skirted Carcassonne; we passed only the occasional farmer going to or leaving the city. At all the major crossroads the Church had erected large crosses, complete with a crucified Christ in agony.
‘Ten years ago those would have been taken down,’ I said to Beatrice. ‘Now they are safe enough.’
At noon we stopped, watered our horses and gave them hay which Etienne had provided. We sat in the early autumn sun and ate our cheese and drank Etienne’s wine. Beatrice sighed happily.
‘We have all we need. I could live off our cheese and the Barraigne wine. I wonder if Francois and Constance will recognise me.’
‘I doubt it. You’ve been away all of nine days by the time we get back to Montaillou.’
She looked shocked for a moment, until I kissed her. We saddled the horses, and were about to mount when we saw a solitary figure walking down the track towards us. As he drew closer I could see he was wearing a green cloak over a brown tunic; he carried a staff, but had no other baggage.
It was Guillaume Authie, older and more lined than when I had last seen him, but still sturdy. He smiled when he saw us – and both of us at the same moment dropped to our knees, seeking his blessing. He touched our heads in turn, we said the Lord’s Prayer together, and then we offered him some bread and wine, which he took, declining the cheese.
‘I’m on my way to Barraigne. I heard Lady Blanche is very sick.’
‘She is,’ I said. ‘Although they are Catholics, as we all are.’
He smiled. ‘You are Cathar again now that I’ve blessed you, at least for a moment. And Stephanie has always sheltered me at Barraigne. I’m
not sure Etienne knows.’
I looked at the track and back along the path we had taken.
‘You need to hurry. She won’t last much longer.’
Guillaume saw my look. ‘There’s no one behind me and I’m not being followed. Thank you for the bread and wine. God bless you both. I’ll be on my way.’ He strode down the track towards Barraigne without a backward glance.
Beatrice and I resumed our journey, both exhilarated and troubled by this chance meeting.
‘I find I like being Cathar again,’ said Beatrice. ‘I feel better. Strange that the touch and the words of one man can do that.’
‘It is strange. It can’t endure – we’ll be Catholics once we are back in Montaillou.’
‘I should have given him my horse,’ said Beatrice.
‘No.’
We rode on in silence, and by the evening of the next day we were home, Catholics once more.
*
Stephanie
GUILLAUME AUTHIE ARRIVED the morning after Francois and Beatrice left us.
‘I passed them on my way here,’ he said to me. ‘I understand Lady Blanche needs me.’
‘She does. She has asked for the Consolamentum.’
‘And the Endura?’
‘And the Endura.’
I knew my mother was not long for this world, and felt that in her case the Endura would hasten her end by only a few hours. I told Etienne that Authie had arrived.
‘Did anyone see him?’ he asked.
‘Only the sentry, and he is Cathar, happy to have been blessed again by a Perfect.’
‘We should take him to see your mother at once. And, even if it seems inhospitable, ask him to leave at dawn. He may have been seen arriving in the valley, he may have been followed. He is making no attempt to conceal who and what he is.’
‘I’m tired of disguises,’ Guillaume said to me as we went to my mother’s room. ‘They were never very successful; I didn’t make a convincing pedlar. God will decide how soon I join my brother.’
Blanche was asleep, her room lit by a single candle until Etienne brought three rushlights from the hall below. She opened her eyes as the dark receded and seemed to recognise Guillaume Authie.
‘Do you wish to be consoled and undergo the Endura?’ he asked in a kind voice.
‘I do,’ said Blanche in a faint whisper.
Authie placed his hand on my mother’s forehead for a minute, then took a small copy of the Gospels from his tunic and touched her head and breast with the book. We said the Lord’s Prayer together, Blanche’s lips moving soundlessly to follow us, and then she closed her eyes.
She never opened them again. When I went up an hour later to say goodnight she had gone. I went to tell Authie and Etienne.
‘Does that mean she’s Perfect again? In spite of recanting, in spite of the Inquisitor?’ I asked.
‘It does. God doesn’t care about such things if you come to him in the end.’
Authie left before dawn, blessing us both, but not the children. ‘They are too young to be discreet,’ said Etienne, and he was right. ‘I only hope his arrival and departure went unnoticed.’
It seemed so – and we resumed our recanted lives as though nothing had happened. We buried Blanche in the churchyard, our priest officiating, and all was as before.
27
The Reckoning
Francois
ON OUR RETURN to Montaillou I spent many hours thinking about our encounter with Guillaume Authie, and the way in which Beatrice and I, unprompted, had knelt down to receive his blessing and say the Lord’s Prayer. We felt better for the blessing; we had become Cathar again.
Guillemette used to describe herself as a ‘Castle Cathar’, saying that if her mistress Claire had become a Mohammedan overnight she too would have converted, if only out of convenience. Her Cathar faith was skin-deep; she had no desire to undergo a painful death by fire to prove her belief in a doctrine about which she was, at best, confused.
‘Two hundred good men and women gone forever,’ she would say. ‘How is the world a better place without them? It’s a victory for evil, for brutality, for the power of the sword.’ There was little point in arguing with her; the fact that I was still alive demonstrated the weakness of my position.
Born Cathar, I had converted quickly enough after the fall of Montségur. I had made no attempt to follow Sybille into the flames, excusing myself through the suddenness of her action. But I knew that if she had told me of her plans a week beforehand I would have tried to dissuade her, would have used physical force to restrain her if that were possible, but I would not willingly have accompanied Sybille, her mother and the other men and women who had gone, almost eagerly, to their painful death.
Did that mean I was a coward? I had proved myself in battle, I had fought off the little gang of marauders that had attacked Sybille and me, I had played my part in the two sieges of Roqueville and Montségur, I had been prepared to risk my life to rescue Beatrice had she been convicted. But I had readily accepted the penalty of the pilgrimage to Compostela; unlike many who had received the same sentence, I completed the journey. And while I was in the company of the friar I had little difficulty in understanding his version of the Catholic faith.
Now I was back in Montaillou, safe enough for the moment. Arnaud Sicre, the one man whose testimony could have destroyed Beatrice and me, was dead. Yet I felt changed by Guillaume’s blessing. He had told me how he and his brother Pierre had been overcome by the words of St John’s Gospel. His blessing, unexpected and unsought, had a similar impact on both Beatrice and me. I was not about to become a Perfect, but I had become a genuine believer. I could tell that Beatrice felt the same.
This realisation, discussed at length between us over breakfast, when we were always alone, had no immediate impact on our lives. Life in the village and in the valley continued to revolve around sheep, cheese-making, and wool from fleece to finished cloth. Our seasons were marked by the annual ritual of the transhumance, the journey to the mountain pastures in the late spring and back again at the end of summer.
Our magistrate and our priest were pale imitations of the Clergue brothers they had replaced. The magistrate collected tithes efficiently enough to satisfy his masters in Carcassonne, and resolved the endless boundary disputes over the valley fields and the mountain pastures with, we had to admit, a far greater degree of fairness than the Clergue brothers, who almost invariably had an involvement with one or other side in any lawsuit. And sometimes both; in Pierre Clergue’s case he had often slept with the wives of the plaintiff and the defendant.
Our church was well attended, but then it always had been full. The new priest heard Confessions regularly and we celebrated our saints’ days with enthusiasm. I once made a joke in bad taste about the priest’s expectations in relation to the chatelaine of the castle and the altar of the church, and Beatrice was not amused. I slept alone for ten days afterwards.
Our twins were a constant source of delight, apart from the occasional anxiety that childhood illnesses bring. Beatrice and I were not always in agreement about their upbringing.
‘There is little point teaching Francois to be a knight,’ said Beatrice; she had been watching me playing with him in the courtyard. ‘He needs to know about sheep and cheese.’
‘Those were wooden swords. It’s never too early to learn the simple parry and riposte. The Languedoc is peaceful now, but that may not last forever. The King of France, and the Counts of Toulouse, and the Church, and all those little kings across the mountains, will always have something to fight about.’
‘Little kings? The King of Aragon was big enough when I needed him.’
‘Indeed he was. So I’ll teach Francois about sheep and swordsmanship. And when he is old enough, lances, crossbows and pigeons.’
Beatrice was happy with this compromise, although we had a further argument when I presented our son with a real sword on his twelfth birthday.
‘He’s strong and sensible. He’s as tall
as you now. When he and his sister ride out together it will deter any vagabond who might think of stealing their ponies.’
‘And worse. They shouldn’t go out without an escort,’ said Beatrice – but Francois kept his sword.
‘Spoils of war,’ I said as I buckled it round his waist. ‘Belonged to the English captain who tried to capture Montaillou, good Damascus steel. Perhaps he acquired it on a proper crusade. Remember, it’s not a toy.’
Francois looked after his new treasure with great care. The sword hung in its leather scabbard on a special peg in his chamber and was regularly oiled and polished once Francois had removed its years of rust. His sister was allowed to admire the weapon, but only from a distance.
Our carpenter built a quintain in the tilt-yard where we still practised with our crossbows once a month.
‘What is that ridiculous object?’ asked Beatrice.
‘A quintain. Strike the Saracen’s head with your lance at the near end of the beam and it swings round, pivoting on the central pole. The sandbag on the far end clouts the rider if he misjudges his speed or fails to duck.’
‘Why a Saracen?
‘Tradition.’
Our son soon became adept at hitting the target and avoiding the sandbag, but only after he had suffered the indignity of being knocked off his pony a couple of times.
‘It looks dangerous to me. It’s not a skill he will ever need,’ said Beatrice.
‘I hope you’re right. But a couple of tumbles hurt only his pride. He’ll soon learn.’
Francois and I spent many hours practising simple skills with wooden swords.
‘Our master at arms at Roqueville taught us all kinds of elaborate flourishes – feints, disengages, prises in octave. Elegant but useless. All that was instantly forgotten in a real fight. Parry and riposte is all you need. Parry first, to stop your enemy killing you, and then the riposte, to kill him.’
And that is what we practised, until Francois could fend off the strongest attack and make an effective riposte.
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