by K. M. Grant
She turns on her heel, runs back up the steps, and shoves a bundle together, with Laila’s box at the top. Within two hours, the mare is collected and waiting. Gui gives her a leg up while Guerau settles her pack. “You do see, don’t you?” Yolanda says to them all. “Laila can fix anything.”
The huntsman speaks slowly. “You do what you have to do, my lovely,” he says, “but take care how you do it.”
She gives a wan smile and glances down at Brees. The dog is ready, undaunted by the prospect of another journey because he has almost forgotten the last one. “If I ride hard and fast enough, maybe God will take care of it for me,” Yolanda says, although given that God seems already to have deserted her, she holds out no hope for that at all.
11
The Pog
We must go back, just a little, to find Aimery first up the path to what is known as the pog of Montségur. Set within a jostling pavilion of other mountains, its particular mix of cottage loaf, giant’s nose, and stubborn boil in need of lancing is quite unmistakable, though for the procession of Cathars, something else marks it out.
At the base of the walls of the fortress, the eastern barbican thrusting up like a thumb floats an uneven and occasional blue haze. The haze is, of course, a trick of the eye, a natural glow from the refraction of a sapphire sky against the glassy sun. To the travelers, however, it is the mark of the Flame, and the sight of it makes every stomach lurch with both pride and fear. Here they are, ready to sacrifice their lives, and the Flame has seen fit to greet them. They ignore the plume of smoke that already rises from the kitchens at the back of the pog. Though this smoke is entirely benign, they need no reminders of what may be in store for them.
All except Sir Roger. He sees the smoke and at once regrets bringing his daughter. As they prepare for the climb, he allows his horse to dawdle. It is not too late. Even now he could order her cart to turn around or, better still, send it on through the Pyrenean passes to Spain, where neither the French army nor the inquisitors will follow. Raimon could take her. Raimon must take her. He pulls his skewbald round.
Raimon is riding alone, staring up like the others at the gauzy blue mist, when Sir Roger accosts him without apology. “If you love Metta as you say you do, take her away from this. Take her to Spain.” Sir Roger pushes so close that their stirrups clink together, and Raimon can smell the stale sweat on the old knight’s woolen undershirt. “She should never have come. What was I thinking? Please, Raimon. It’s too late for me to take her back but you could take her forward.” He gestures at the peaks. “That way lies life and here,” he gestures at the fortress, “lies death. I know it. We all know it. Who survives a last stand?” He drops his reins and wrings his hands.
Raimon’s heart sinks, and he blames himself. How could he not have forseen this? No man would willingly see a daughter perish. Look at how his own father has suffered at Adela’s pointless decline. But he is in too deep to desert the Flame now. It is up there, waiting for him, and he will not abandon it. “Sir Roger,” he begins, and is at once rudely interrupted.
“Here we are! We must ride up together as far as we can,” cries Aimery, pushing Argos between them. “The finest days of the Occitan are just beginning. People will talk about this for centuries to come. Alain!” He stands in his stirrups and bellows. “Take my standard out in front.”
When Sir Roger does not respond in kind, Aimery reproaches him. “Come, Sir Roger. Why the long face? This is surely a moment for all good Cathars to savor. The Blue Flame calls to us. Can’t you hear it?”
Sir Roger makes an inarticulate noise and falls back, his eyes still boring into Raimon. Aimery, who sees it all, now bends Argos hard against Galahad so that the horses increase their step and leave Sir Roger behind. Scarcely is the old man out of earshot before Aimery winks. “Well, Sir Raimon,” he jibes, “I thought your prospective father-in-law might try to get you to elope with Metta. That would be tricky, wouldn’t it. Still, I’ve saved you from trying to explain why you can’t.”
“Go away!” Raimon forces the words through his teeth. “Just go away, Aimery. You sully everything. You think you’re a knight, but you’re nothing but a cheap opportunist.”
A loud crow issues from Aimery’s mouth. “Me? Me an opportunist?” He leers into Raimon’s face. “Isn’t opportunity what life’s about, my friend? And I don’t see you neglecting yours.”
The horses are sweating, their shoes scuffing sparks as the slope steepens. The glistening shingle provides no solid footholds. One horse falls and grazes its knees. Aimery shifts in his saddle, suddenly a soldier. “Impossible for the king’s men to gallop up here at any rate,” he says. “We’ll have plenty of warning. Hugh will be at some disadvantage.”
Raimon does not reply.
They climb on, the horses blowing and panting, and as they get nearer to the fortress Aimery suddenly begins to shout. “Ho!” he bellows. “Friends! Ho up there!” He jabs Raimon in the ribs. “They’ll see my banner and may think we’re enemies. We must let them know we come in peace. You should shout too.”
Raimon wants to punch him.
Aimery shouts again and this time three arrows greet him in return, one landing in front of Argos’s nose and the others in line with Aimery’s toes. They bounce, for the ground is either too hard or too flimsy to get any purchase, but Aimery notes the barbed heads and jerks Argos to a halt. “Ho there! I tell you we come in peace.” He squints up and is dazzled by the sun. Another arrow flies passed. Argos treads on the shaft and snaps it. Aimery slowly raises his hands. They wait. No more arrows. Aimery grins. “We’ll have to walk from here on foot,” he says. “I don’t think the horses can come farther even without riders. I suppose we just have to let them go.”
Raimon dismounts. Aimery swings a leg over and sits sidesaddle for a moment. Both of them look behind them to where the procession has become as uneven as a broken sentence. Many knights have already dismounted and the carts have stopped, the baggage slowly being unloaded onto human donkeys and the women hitching up their skirts to climb unhampered. Metta and Adela are together.
It is with true regret that Aimery lets Argos loose. Raimon hands Galahad over to Cador. The boy’s chin is trembling. Just when he got his warhorse, he must lose it. Raimon draws him to one side. This is where they must part too. However brutal he must be, however much he must lie, he cannot let Cador enter the fortress. He adopts his sternest face and his sternest tones. “Now, Cador. Give me Unbent. I can manage for myself from here.”
The little boy sags, as if from a blow, even as he helps Raimon strap on the baldric. “You said you wouldn’t abandon me.”
“I’m not abandoning you. I’m giving you a different job. I don’t want Galahad and Bors to wander off like Argos. You must take them and look after them.”
Cador is not fooled. Nobody else is leaving their squire behind. Raimon is getting rid of him. His voice rings out. “You’re my knight. You can’t just dismiss me. I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“A good squire obeys his lord.” Raimon will not relent. “You can’t come any farther.”
“Do you want to end up with your stuff as tatty as Sir Roger’s?”
Raimon gives the ghost of a smile. “I don’t think anybody will notice.”
The boy crumbles completely now. “I don’t believe any of it,” he sobs. “You being a Cathar or loving Metta—none of it. And don’t try to persuade me because I never will.” Raimon has to look away. “But the thing that’s hardest,” Cador tries to find something on which to wipe his nose, “the thing that’s really hardest, is that you don’t trust me anymore.”
Now Raimon’s fingers grip Cador’s shoulders hard enough to bruise. The boy forgets his nose as Raimon shakes him. “Remember what Sir Parsifal said just before he died?”
“He said we should live for the Flame, the Amouroix, the Occitan, and for love,” Cador gurgles.
“And then he asked a question. He asked which was the most important, and what was the answe
r?” Raimon draws their faces very close.
“ ‘Love,’ Sir Raimon, that was the answer.” Their eyes lock together.
“And isn’t trust part of love?” Raimon asks.
“I’ve always thought so.” Cador hiccups.
“And do you doubt that I love you as a knight should love a squire?”
“Not until now.”
“Now’s not a time to doubt, Cador.” Their eyes are still locked. “Not for a minute. It’s because I trust you absolutely that you must do as I ask.” Raimon lets go of the boy’s shoulders and, with sudden determination, slips off the baldric. “Take Unbent,” he says, “and wait for me. You won’t know where or when I’m coming, but I am coming. Do you understand?”
There is no veil between them now. Neither moves. When, eventually, Raimon opens his mouth again, Cador puts his finger to his lips. He needs nothing more. Without another word, he hitches Unbent over his shoulder and begins to lead the horses down the hill. They take their time, for the way is rough, and though he does not look back, Raimon guesses rightly that for the first time in weeks, though his squire’s eyes are wet with tears, they are shining.
After another hour, the fortress frowns directly above those climbing toward it, with the great keep to their left and the bailey to their right. Already they can hear the rumble of life within, and not only within. Beneath the walls, like a brood of chicks under a mother hen, lurks a collection of wooden huts, built and inhabited by those Cathars with monkish pretensions. However, faced with the threat of Louis’s approaching army, prayer is not the only thing on their minds. Between every second hut stone slings have been erected with piles of hefty rocks beside them. Even these men of God will not be taken without a fight.
The main protection, however, bears no relation to either barbican or sling. Apart from the southwesterly path up which the visitors have just climbed, all the faces of the pog are either so sheer and unstable or so deeply and unevenly ridged that it would be physically impossible for an enemy force of any size to gain a firm hold. There is no need, therefore, for a bank of sentries, which is why Sir Roger’s company is greeted by only four men standing on the wooden platform balanced on stilts in front of the fortress’s gate. Their swords are unsheathed, but, despite the earlier shower of arrows, they do not look alarmed.
“We’re here to help defend the Flame,” Aimery calls up.
“Aren’t you Count Aimery of Castelneuf?”
“Yes, that’s me!”
The four men all peer down. “Last we heard,” the tallest declares, tapping his sword on the railing, “you wanted the Flame delivered to the King of France.” He twists his head. “Cut the noise in there! We can’t hear a thing.” The order is fired back. The noise subsides slightly.
“You heard right,” Aimery calls back, “but perhaps you haven’t heard that the king repaid me by setting fire to my chateau and burning my villages. I owe no allegiance to him now.”
The men consult.
Sir Roger, who has needed two supporting shoulders to make the last bit of the climb, now catches his breath. “Is one of you Raymond de Perella?” he asks.
“No. I am.” A man with a face that has seen better days pushes through from behind. “I control who comes in and out.” It seems an unnecessary statement, and Raimon at once senses that there is tension up here. The White Wolf, no doubt, has put himself in charge.
Sir Roger plants his feet more firmly. “We wish to come in.”
There is a pause. De Perella inspects the visitors and dwells on Aimery’s banner. At last, he twitches impatiently. He is always impatient these days. “Who vouches for Sir Aimery of Amouroix?”
“Oh, I do,” Sir Roger says in a slight fluster. He feels he should have made this clear without being asked. He is still thinking of Metta. He pulls himself together. “The count provided hospitality when we were caught in the snow in the Amouroix and has traveled here with my blessing.”
“But he’s a Catholic.”
“Was,” corrects Aimery, elbowing Sir Roger aside. “But as I say, the burning of my chateau by the French king taught me better.”
De Perella scrutinizes him for a moment, then watches the procession slowly catching up with the leaders. The warhorses are wandering downhill, lipping the shoots lurking under last year’s dead growth. Relaxed and unthreatening, they seem to offer reassurance. “Wait there,” he orders.
“Not too long, I hope,” Aimery joshes. “I hear Hugh des Arcis has already set out, and we don’t want to be caught on the wrong side of the wall.”
Nobody smiles but without much further ado, a small gate underneath the platform is opened and hands flap their willingness to draw the travelers in. This is the last possible moment. Sir Roger finds his daughter rosy with the unaccustomed exercise. “Metta,” he says, catching her hands. “Metta.”
“Come, father,” she says, smiling directly at him. “Journey’s end.” He cannot make her stop, and Raimon does not try. When she enters the fortress, the hearts of both men twinge.
It may seem odd to speak of claustrophobia when we are on the top of a hill where the wind is never still and where, from the ramparts, the vista spreads almost without limit, yet after an hour in the courtyard, Raimon can hardly breathe. The place is not just full, it is heaving with people, more people than the fortress was ever designed to hold, and hemmed in by the high walls, the trapped air is overused and sour.
Like animals in a corral, men and women shuffle about, children playing between their legs and between the legs of three cows tethered next to two overflowing water cisterns. From makeshift lines, gray laundry hangs in dispirited flags, and beneath the laundry lie several tightly swaddled babies shrieking their own complaints into the din. It feels more like a camp for refugees than a mustering ground for knights preparing for a final stand.
“For the love of God,” says Aimery, genuinely horrified. “Let’s hope we don’t have to spend long in this pigpen.” Raimon cannot disagree.
The kitchens, banished to the perimeter to diminish the threat of fire, are shacks, with corn spilling from sacks lodged in doorways. Piles of half-uncovered and fly-ridden cheeses add to the general stink. Yet their particular stink offers some consolation: at least there is no shortage of food. The villagers at the bottom of the pog are clearly making good money keeping the garrison supplied.
Despite this, the atmosphere is febrile. Arguments flare over the tiniest things: disputed ownership of an egg, a stamped-on toe, an upturned bench over which somebody has tripped. Through this swirl, the new arrivals tread softly and though, as fellow Cathars and Occitanians, they are greeted ostensibly with joy, greetings are swiftly followed by clear reinforcements of small personal boundaries. “I sleep there, and my wife beside me, so better to find somewhere else,” or, “Sorry we’ve been using that dip in the wall to store our clothes and armor, so can you find another slot?” The apologies are copious and some genuinely meant. Everybody is simply trying to live as best as they can.
Only the keep, rising blackly on the opposite side to the kitchens with its bottom door firmly closed, is set apart from the general hum. Even the barbican tower seems friendly in comparison. “The Flame’s in the keep,” Aimery murmurs to Raimon. “Sure as you’re not a Cathar.”
It is against the bottom of the keep, in a corner that has never, since building on the pog first began, been touched by the sun, that the household of Sir Roger de Salas eventually finds itself crammed. A few yellowing weeds are all that has ever flourished here and all that ever will.
Metta takes charge. “We’re lucky,” she announces cheerfully. “At least we’ll be sheltered from the wind.”
The knights look around. Wind? Only above the walls. They would welcome it down here. At least it would disperse the smell. “And we’re all together.” All together? In this discomfort, of what comfort is that? Despite her best efforts, they crack, angry and complaining. “They don’t need us here! There’s no room! We shouldn’t have come.”
Sir Roger loses his temper. “What did you imagine it would be like?” he shouts, shoving himself between two daggers drawn over a disputed inch of earth. “We do this for the Flame and the Occitan.”
The knights grumble more quietly.
Hours later, when the company has scrimped and squeezed and grudgingly bedded down, Raimon stands in the shadows, his head stretched back and his eyes glued upward. Aimery is right. Though he can see nothing but a series of dark window slits outlining each floor, and the bottom door appears to be locked from the inside, the Flame must be in the keep. Nobody sleeps much. Raimon does not sleep at all.
There is a sudden buzz the following morning when de Perella’s sons-in-law call everybody together. It seems that they are going to be addressed, and judging by the muted excitement, this is unusual. Nobody can really move very far, but eyes strain toward the wide wooden balcony that has been raised inside the curtain wall above the main gate. A narrow duckboard walkway leads straight to an upper door in the keep that Raimon had not noticed. The door at ground level must, Raimon thinks, be used for servicing domestic needs.
They are not kept waiting long. A man appears and at his appearance, Raimon’s every pore prickles.
The White Wolf is just how he remembers him, his hair and beard still white as swansdown and his manner unassuming. However, he is no longer wearing the clothes of a weaver as he was when he first appeared from Raimon’s father’s workshop. Now he wears a long black, hooded robe like an Old Testament prophet. Nor is he alone. There must be two hundred perfecti behind him, women as well as men, all dressed exactly the same, with sandaled feet protruding from rough hems. As the perfecti process, everybody bows low, as is the custom, Aimery with a particular flourish. Raimon cannot bring himself to bow, so he crouches as the cry “Pray God to make a good Christian of me, and bring me to a good end!” clearly well practiced, goes up, and for a moment, all petty acrimony is submerged under a tide of devotion. The White Wolf stands as though he holds the key of heaven, and nobody questions or mutters, because nobody wants to waste a second of the fix of hope he seems to offer.