Paradise Red

by K. M. Grant

  “Cheat for not bowing!” Aimery hisses as Raimon rises again. Raimon does not answer.

  The White Wolf is quietly accepting of all the adulation, and when at last he speaks, he dominates this pulsating mass with the same soft voice that Raimon hears in nightmares.

  “Good people,” the White Wolf says, and watches his words settle like honey. “How happy we are, here on this hilltop. God has placed the Blue Flame into our hands as proof that we are his chosen ones.” He spreads his arms in a general embrace. “Though our travails will be hard, there is no need to fear because we are the blessed. Here, at Montségur, we are writing the last and best chapter in the history of the Occitan.” He smiles a smile of blessing. “Is anybody afraid?”

  The quality of the silence changes. The truth is that they are all afraid.

  “Is there no honesty here?” His voice is gently teasing.

  “I’m afraid!” a woman calls out. “I’m afraid for my children.”

  “Yes, I’m afraid too!” cries another.

  The White Wolf laughs. “It takes a woman,” he says, and everybody laughs until the White Wolf stops and at once the laughter is stifled. “Do not fear,” he says, loudly for him. “Fear is the enemy of the Flame. Remember that, my friends. Good men have no fear because they have no need of it, nor good women either.”

  The honest women at the back shrink, duly chastised.

  Metta squeezes in beside Raimon. “I’m not frightened because you’re here,” she says.

  “Metta—”

  “Shh! He’s not finished.”

  The White Wolf grips the railing. “Good people,” he says. “I’m speaking today because we learn that the army headed by Sir Hugh des Arcis approaches, pitting the red oriflamme of the French king against the blue of our Flame. Very soon we are to be tested.” A groan arises. The White Wolf allows it to heighten before raising his hand. At once it diminishes. “Now, I’m aware that though Sir Hugh carries the oriflamme in full sight of his troops, many of you have never seen the Flame, the symbol of the faith you have come so nobly to defend. Well, now it is time.” He moves to the side and there is a collective gasp from the crowd. Metta claps her hands over her mouth.

  And there it is, in the hands of a black-robed acolyte, the tattered box that Raimon knows so well with the Flame burning inside. The White Wolf takes the box and strokes it. Now his whole face glitters. He holds it up. The crowd sways and utters small ejaculations of praise. Then, just as suddenly as it appeared, the Flame is being passed quickly from perfectus to perfectus until it vanishes back into the keep.

  Like everybody else, Raimon watches it until the last moment, feeling its color wash up behind his eyelids, into his head, and through his veins. The relief at just seeing it is intense. He has been right to come. The Flame of the Occitan does not belong here. This is not how it must be remembered.

  The spell is broken by a question, and this time the White Wolf’s voice is less gentle. He has been scrutinizing the crowd and is amazed by what he has seen. “You have gained entry here, Aimery of Amouroix?” he asks. “You? I can hardly believe it.”

  Aimery clears his throat. “Can’t a man see the light?”

  “A man might see the light,” the White Wolf counters, “but seldom such a man as you.”

  There is consternation. The crowd, reenergized by their holy icon, turns threatening. Some of the knights reach for their swords. The White Wolf intervenes. “My dear friends, please! There will be plenty of blood shed by our enemies. Let’s not do their work for them.”

  Aimery, however, turns nervously to Sir Roger. “You tell him,” he says, his breathing louder than normal, “and tell him that Raimon Belot is here too.”

  But the White Wolf’s eyes have already been raking the crowd. “Fellow Cathars! There is another false friend here. Raimon Belot, step forward if you dare.”

  Metta clutches Raimon’s arm and moves forward with him.

  The White Wolf peers. “I am shocked at you, Raymond de Perella, for granting sanctuary to these creatures.” His eyes glint, but his voice is as placid as that of a nun telling her beads. In such a place, this calmness is a weapon beyond price. Let the crowd do the shouting.

  He is not disappointed. If there was muttering before, now there is uproar, and he lets it feed on itself before holding his hand up once again. “My good people! You are right to be outraged. But Count Aimery is right, of course. A man may change. Perhaps Raimon Belot has changed too. I, for one, shall welcome him without suspicion if he openly declares, before God, that he is now a true believer.”

  Raimon’s mouth is dry. It is only as he expected. He imagined himself lying to the White Wolf. But to swear before so many! He struggles to say even one word. Then Metta’s voice rises like a flute above the growling. “Perfectus! You have forgotten the healing power of love! Has not Raimon already declared himself by coming here with me? We are here together, and surely, in the face of such a blessing, we should trust, not condemn.”

  Raimon colors violently. He has done this girl such a wrong as perhaps can never be righted.

  “There can be no trust at a time of war!” shouts a voice from the back. “And this is a time of war.”

  “We must trust especially at a time of war,” Metta says warmly, and every word is a nail in Raimon’s heart. “Isn’t that right, Perfectus? Without trust, nothing can be won because without trust we end up fighting each other.”

  The White Wolf’s smile shows strain. “That’s true enough,” he agrees, “but it’s also true that trust still requires caution. Can Raimon Belot prove that his past is truly behind him?”

  “Do you trust me?” Metta demands.

  The White Wolf fixes her with a kindly gaze. “I have no reason not to trust you.”

  “Then if I tell you that Raimon Belot is wearing my father’s ring, will you trust him too?”

  A wrinkle appears in the White Wolf’s forehead. “Your father’s ring?”

  Metta seizes Raimon’s hand and holds it up, twisting the ring so that the sun catches gold and gem alike. She prods her father until he puts his heavy arm around Raimon’s shoulders in a gesture of public affection. “He wears that ring as a token of love for my daughter,” the old knight says. “He put it on willingly and before witnesses. He has not taken it off since, nor done anything at all to make me suspect that he is not a man of honor.”

  At the mention of love and honor, the murmuring has lost its growl. After all, are they not all Occitanians, and have they not, evening after evening, year after year, generation after generation, nodded and sighed as the troubadours have extolled the transforming power of these twin virtues in song and verse? Love is in their blood, honor in their souls. To them, this is not idle romance: love, particularly, can shift and transform as powerfully as the sun shifts the seasons. Some knights sigh. Some touch the hands of their wives. Others remain quite still as faces, unseen for years but never forgotten, rise up and meet them in secret communion.

  The White Wolf watches carefully and steps back. He does not believe Raimon, but he knows better than to challenge him again—at least not without evidence of treachery. He nudges the black-clad perfectus behind him. “Watch him,” he says.

  He begins to walk along the duckboards back toward the keep but now Adela is pushing her way through. “Perfectus! Perfectus!” she cries. “You haven’t forgotten me?”

  The White Wolf’s demeanor changes at once. He moves swiftly back, the wrinkle vanishing from his forehead as he holds out his arms. “Adela! God’s most faithful daughter!” Adela worms her way through and is lifted up by the crowd. For a second, as perfecti pull her over the railing, the White Wolf wonders if she will berate him for having abandoned her when he fled from Castelneuf during the fire, and to preempt any such embarrassment, he hugs her to him with a joyous laugh as she bends low. “Why, there’s no need for that! You’re already one of the saved.” By the time he lets go, she is positively bridal. “Get her a proper gown,” the White W
olf orders a woman perfectus behind him. “She belongs with us.” Adela is handed down the line like a precious parcel. Only as she nears the keep door is there a frantic cry from below. “Adela! Daughter!” It is Sicart’s last appeal. For a second, the line of perfecti wavers, but when Adela pretends not to hear, it closes around her again.

  After the last perfecti have vanished, Aimery finds Raimon’s ear. “Easier than we thought, eh!” he whispers as Metta walks with her father.

  “Stay away from me,” Raimon warns.

  “Are you joking? We must stick together. If we’re to wrest the Flame from this bunch of lunatics, it’s the only way.”

  “You want the Flame only for yourself.”

  “Not for myself, my dear Raimon, not at all for myself.”

  Metta returns to Raimon’s side. She smiles and murmurs to him. He tries to answer but can think of nothing to say. Aimery is going to hand the Flame to Hugh. That is clear enough now. But quite apart from keeping it from Aimery, he must get the Flame soon, because if he does not, his guilt will undo him.

  That night, to his surprise, he sleeps, and as he sleeps, he dreams a dream he neither likes nor understands. He dreams that he and Yolanda are together, not at Castelneuf but somewhere he does not recognize. Indeed, it is not really even a place, at least not a place that a mapmaker might outline, for, like an unbounded melody, this place seems to have no limits. At first he thinks the Flame is missing and this alarms him. Then he sees his mistake. The Flame is here, only instead of commanding the landscape, it has become part of it, no longer a Flame to display on a hilltop to draw men to battle, no longer a Flame of sword and fire. Rather, the Flame in his dream pulses gently with the heart beneath.

  When he wakes, he dismisses the dream wholesale as a fancy for old men whose force is spent. The real Flame is a call to arms. That is the Flame Sir Parsifal brought. That is the Flame the White Wolf has stolen. That is the Flame over which he and Yolanda forged their rings. That is the Flame of the Occitan. It is not dreams he needs but opportunities. He wonders if he is growing soft. But soon this worry is subsumed under the greater worry about how any opportunity to take the Flame will arise when he is shadowed every moment by either the White Wolf’s spy or Aimery. What is more, if he has no luck before Hugh’s army spreads itself around the pog, even if he does get the Flame out of this place, how will he get it away? Yet he cannot be precipitate. He knows he will only get one chance. So dreaming gives way to fretting until, when his moment does arrive, he is almost too wound up to grasp it.

  12

  The Attempt

  It comes, naturally, when he least expects it. After dinner one evening, long after the bottom door is normally shut for the night, one of the perfecti hurries out of the keep to fetch water and, for convenience sake, does not slam the door behind him. Raimon, playing with his dagger, stares for some time before he jolts. His perfectus shadow is nowhere to be seen. Aimery is nearby, though. Raimon bites his lip but does not stop. Aimery be damned. He jams his dagger into his belt. Here is his opportunity and he is not going to waste it.

  Except before he gets anywhere near the door, he hears a sharp, familiar tone of complaint and a high voice behind the postern gate demanding entrance so loudly and persistently that all the sleeping babies wake and begin to wail, which sets the cows mooing, the cocks crowing, and three small dogs barking their heads off.

  And there is Laila, swinging past the sentries, tossing her curls, flashing scarlet lips, and shouting for Aimery. Raimon stalls, holding his breath. The door is wide open, the perfectus is nonplussed. “Go, go,” his brain tells him. Yet he cannot. If Laila is here, Yolanda could be with her. He is paralyzed, and by the time he realizes Laila is alone, the keep door has slammed and the opportunity is lost. Sickened, he watches how she throws off the hood of her cloak and, just by that gesture, alarms every wife and banishes drowsiness from every husband’s eyes. Sir Roger’s company welcome her, however, recalling with pleasure her mimes and tricks. At last there will be amusement in this dreary hole. Last stands are not nearly as exotic as they sound. Only Raimon turns his back.

  Aimery is half embarrassed, half triumphant. To be pursued by a lady, even if it is Laila—perhaps especially if it is Laila—marks him out rather enviably. With only momentary irresolution, he moves to greet her. “Well I never,” he says, waving to de Perella that Laila belongs to him. “You must be keen. That’s quite a climb in the dark.”

  She shakes the pebbles from her unsuitable shoes. “A girl can do anything if she’s determined enough.” She brushes against him deliberately.

  “Ah, I think you’re flattering me,” he says, herding her over to where he has staked his claim. Ignoring Raimon completely, she allows herself to be commandeered and seems more than contented when their two shadows slowly settle into one.

  The courtyard stills for sleep again, with only one baby still persistently crying. Raimon huddles by the keep door, kicking himself primarily, then comforting himself that at least Aimery will, in future, be too distracted to follow him about. He wonders why Laila has come now when she would not come before, then dismisses this as of no consequence. Laila just does exactly as she pleases. Trying to discover a motive is as pointless as trying to trap mercury.

  Just before dawn, he becomes aware of a woman threading her way quickly over the sleeping bodies. It is the mother of the persistent baby, though she is not carrying the baby with her. Instead, she begins to hammer on the keep door. “Somebody!” she hollers, “Somebody! Please come. My baby is sick! Come and lay your hands upon him. Please, one of you holy men, please! I beg you.”

  The courtyard stirs again, at first with sympathy and then with increasing irritation as the woman’s sobs become hysterical and her banging increases in fervor. “For God’s sake,” someone bursts out, “answer the wretched woman at least!”

  Eventually the door opens. A perfectus is pulling his hood up. “Yes? Yes?”

  “My baby,” she says, clutching his arm, her voice wretched with fear. “Get the good book and come to my baby.”

  He asks her a few questions then vanishes inside and returns with a bundle. Before he has the chance to give the door more than a random backward kick, he is seized by the woman and dragged away. The door closes but the latch does not click. Once again, Raimon is poised, and this time nothing will deflect him.

  Hugging the wall, his hand is on the door, then he is inside, padding down a windowless corridor boasting only a single lamp. In the gloom, he can just make out doors opening off into what he imagines are storerooms. He touches his dagger, then chooses an opening halfway up the corridor, pushes the door ajar, and positions himself to wait.

  It is a long twenty minutes before the perfectus returns, but Raimon is ready. When the man passes, he grabs him around the neck and pulls him inside, jamming him facedown into a sack of something soft. It is darker than pitch. “Take off your habit,” Raimon hisses. The man half folds himself up, as if to refuse, but a timely prick with the dagger has him pulling his black habit over his head, quite forgetting about the rope belt that has bound it around his waist. Raimon clenches the dagger between his teeth and untangles the belt so that in a few fumbling seconds the man is reduced to his undergarments. After tying up his victim’s arms, Raimon pulls on the habit himself, wrinkling his nose at the thick, sweaty smell embedded in its coarse weave. He feels around for an empty sack, finds one, and tosses it over the man, securing it, for want of anything better, with a leather bootlace. Finally, he pulls off the perfectus’s sandals and slips his own feet into them. They are warm and clammy. His toes curl. “I’m leaving somebody with you,” he lies. “If you scream, he knows what to do.” The perfectus is shivering. Raimon pretends to go out, closing the door with a click. He hears the man exhale. Then Raimon coughs. The man utters a tiny groan. Raimon slips out, pulling up the hood, and this time closing the door without any sound at all.

  The passage ends in a rough stone staircase that rises a long way before ben
ding around and giving onto another floor. All the rooms here open onto each other and silver lances of light spread across the open doors. He hears the dull clink of pewter and some subdued chatter. Early breakfast before prayer. This must be the floor on which the perfecti conduct the daily necessities of living. It is also the floor with the door that gives out onto the walkway. The Flame will not be here. He continues upward, meeting several perfecti coming down. But though he is conscious that his ankles stick out, for he is much taller than his prisoner, nobody at this sleepy hour looks twice at him as he pushes past, head bowed. It is at least sixty steps up to the next floor, and here the doors are closed. He glances up. The staircase continues to bend around to the roof. Raimon goes no farther. He steps off the staircase and into the first room. Something in his belly surges. The Flame is very near, and it is waiting for him. He is sure of it.

  He strides forward, knowing that he will draw far more attention to himself if he looks shifty. He already has his hand on the handle when the door is opened briskly from the other side and he comes face-to-face with another perfectus. At once he draws back, murmuring an apology, which is reciprocated. A long line of black-habited men files through, most also with their hoods up against the morning chill. Their sandals slap against the bare flags. “Are you not coming down to eat, brother?” one asks him.

  He turns his body slightly, as though politely waiting to join the end of the line, and only when the last flick of black has vanished does he press on through another door, and another, before he knows that the next room must contain the Flame.

  He does not enter immediately. Instead he sinks into the shadows. His plan is quite simple. He will wait and slip in with another perfectus, sitting quietly until he sees how things are. There must be no hurry and when he strikes there must be no mercy. When he has disposed of anybody in his way, he must hide the Flame in the arms of the tunic and then mingle again with the other perfecti and hope he can get out before their loss is noticed. Even if the loss is noticed quickly, with all the perfecti dressed the same and so many not really known to one another, it will take them a little while to single him out, and anything may have happened by then.