by Bell, Gradyn
“Why are you both here?” Raymond continued. “I see you are still waiting for me to tell you. The simple answer is that you are to be spies; you, my son, will be mounted and armed while you, Pons, will go about the countryside, dressed as you are in the garb of an ordinary working man. Your job will be to gather intelligence about de Montfort’s plans, his ordinance, his strength, where he will strike next. You, Alain, will report back to me as speedily as possible while Pons will report to the perfecti at Fanjeaux and then to the Lady Esclarmonde at Pamiers. You will be given messages to carry from the perfecti to Esclarmonde and you will carry back her reply should there be one.
“Nothing must be committed to parchment unless absolutely necessary, and no names must ever be divulged. Your mark of credibility for the message you carry will be the dove you wear about your neck. When the people you seek see the dove, you will gain their trust immediately. If the response you receive shows no recognition of the symbol, make yourself scarce as soon as possible without arousing suspicion. Guard the dove well, my boy. It could mean the difference between life and death, and, if misused, might cause innocents to suffer.”
The two young men stared at each other. “Are we to travel together, Papa?’
“No. You will each go your separate ways. You, Alain, must insinuate yourself into groups of soldiers and even routiers. That would be no place for Pons; he must go amongst priests and clerics and some of the richer townsfolk who may have information that he can glean.” He touched Pons’ head. “It may become necessary to pretend to be something you are not. I am sure your God will forgive a little subterfuge if by chance you should need to enter a church or a Cathedral.”
Pons looked at him, wide-eyed. “What would my parents say? What about the perfecti? What about Arnaud and Bertrand Arsen? What will they say?”
“Peace, peace!” The Count hushed him. “You may take my word that all is arranged and permission has been given. You have been especially chosen, my boy. And make no mistake—your task, should it succeed, will save many of your brethren’s lives, and yours.” He turned to his son. “Many seigneurs defending their fortresses will be depending on the intelligence you manage to collect, too.”
The two young men gazed at each other, each preoccupied with his own thoughts. Finally, Pons broke the silence. “When shall we go? Where shall we go?”
“You will not report to me directly. You will be contacted soon. In the meantime, you will remain here in the chateau doing what you have been accustomed to doing. But on no account mention this meeting. If you are asked why you were called to my quarters, you may say I was asking after Bertrand Arsen and Arnaud. Everyone here knows in what esteem I hold them. As for you, my son, you will mount up and ride from here. I will not expect your return until you have important news to impart. Do not trust anyone, even those you think you can trust.” He pulled his son towards him and gave him a hug. “Go now, and may God go with you.”
Turning to Pons, he said. “Remain here for the time being so that prying eyes don’t see the two of you leaving together.”
The room seemed eerily empty after Alain had left. Although he was not by any means a big man, his physical presence and the energy he exuded had filled the room. By contrast, his father had seemed to shrink. He had learned several harsh lessons in the past months, one of which was to not court danger but rather fight fire with fire, the fire in this case being the political machinations that the Church had used against him.
“Your first task will be to go to Fanjeaux where Bertrand Arsen will undoubtedly have some information for Esclarmonde. You’ll take this information to her in Pamiers where she is staying with her brother, de Foix. She is in residence there most of the time, especially now, so near to Christ’s mass. You will also carry a letter from me to deliver to the perfecti. It is better if you know nothing of its contents. As soon as it is delivered, you may bring me back a response.”
“How will I gain entry into the chateau in Pamiers? Why should they allow me in? “
“Never fear. All these details have already been arranged. Be sure to guard your little dove well, for as I have said, it is the signal that will ease your passage wherever you go!”
Pons was still not satisfied. “But what shall I say to the others? My friends who have joined you know that I am here.”
“Do not concern yourself with that. I shall have it rumoured that you were discontent and wished some time to think on your decision to come here. Now, go and prepare yourself. Get food and water and a good pair of boots. And take warm clothes; you will need them!”
Both young men left the chateau the following week, one amidst great fanfare with trumpets and ceremony, the other slipping out quietly just before the gates were closed for the night. Alain de Toulouse was ostensibly offering his services, and that of some of his father’s men, to de Montfort in an effort to seal the lifting of his father’s excommunication from the church. His would be a dangerous game of treachery that he would be lucky to survive.
Before leaving, he had had a final meeting alone with his father, for disturbing rumours about a mysterious piece of linen with supposed miraculous powers had begun to circulate in the area. The Count was inclined to dismiss the rumours out of hand, but nevertheless cautioned his son to keep his eyes and ears open in case there should be some truth in what he had heard from other spies.
As it grew dark, with almost furtive stealth, Pons let himself outside the gates of the city, where he turned south. There were few people about at that hour and he found himself wishing he could retrace the footsteps that had brought him to Toulouse such a short time ago. He missed his family more than he had ever thought possible. Tucked inside his sleeve, he carried the letter he would deliver to Bertrand Arsen. In his imagination it burnt his arm like a fiery brand, but he dare not remove it for fear of discovery.
What occurred on the second day of his journey he would not soon forget. He had planned to walk along with ordinary people going about their day-to-day business and perhaps melt into the company of wandering clerics, but this was not to be. He had been warned by Toulouse that he might encounter soldiers en route, but never in all his life had he imagined so many! The noise of their baggage trains and the immensity of the siege equipment only served to terrify the young man, who was ever conscious of the letter he carried with him. Surely it must have been obvious to anyone who cared to look that he was doing something clandestine!
His terror was complete when he discovered that the army was also bound for Fanjeaux. However, he need not have worried. The soldiers were too busy moving their equipment and seeing to their armour to bother with what seemed like simply a solitary traveller. He was able to strike up conversations with some of the younger soldiers, who told him that their Commander was at the front of the immense cavalcade. When he was given this piece of information, Pons could hardly conceal a shudder. He had heard the tales of de Montfort’s forays into the countryside and had no wish to encounter the man who was clearly the living embodiment of evil.
The soldiers told him they had come from Preixan where de Montfort had set out to fight Esclarmonde’s brother, the Count of Foix, a man Pons knew well if only by reputation. About the countryside Foix was known as the “Red Count” because of the colour of his hair. He was a man of the mountains, a violent man who took his earthly pleasures very seriously. His prodigious appetite for women and food was well known throughout Occitania. Although he was a professed Catholic, his whole of the rest of his family was heretic. His sister Esclarmonde was a perfecta and his wife was the director of a house of Bonnes Dames, as perfectae were otherwise known. Both women devoted their lives to doing good and charitable work.
Foix had taken it upon himself to kill the Abbot of St. Antonin, who had unwisely decided to hound the count’s elderly aunt out of Pamiers. In retribution for the foolish abbot’s behaviour, the hot-headed Foix had not only murdered the unfortunate abbot and displayed his body sacrilegiously on the altar of his church but als
o pillaged all the monasteries on his own estates. Simon had arrived to quell the uprising and, fortunately for Foix, was willing to accept the Red Count’s reaffirmation of his Catholicism and his so-called ‘desire for peace’. Foix had decided that discretion was the better part of valour and had taken to heart Raymond-Roger’s early demise the previous month. He had no desire to leave the world in a similar fashion.
Hardly had this affair been settled when another vexatious matter arose to trouble de Montfort. Affronted by the murder of his uncle and dissatisfied with de Montfort’s response to it, Giraud of Pepieux, who had originally joined the cause of the Crusaders, took it upon himself to deal with the matter. Enflamed with rage, he revolted against Simon and joined the cause of the Occitanians. Making a surprise attack on the chateau of Puisserguier—one that Simon had previously taken and left garrisoned by only two knights and a small company of men—Giraud swiftly overcame the chateau and took the two noblemen prisoner.
What Giraud did to the noblemen would enter the annals of history as one of the most infamous acts of cruelty man would ever practise on his fellow man. First he put out their eyes and cut off their ears and their noses. Then, in a final act of cruelty, he had their top lips cut off so their live faces wore the horrible unnatural fixed grin of death. Giraud then sent one of these unfortunate men to Carcassonne for that the invading armies to see what punishment would be meted out to them, should they be taken captive.
When Pons heard these tales, which were told to him with some gusto by the soldiers he had encountered along the way, his stomach turned. He did not wish to hear that men fighting for the cause of the heretics would do such cruel things to their fellow man. He was certain that none of the perfecti would condone this behaviour on behalf of their beliefs. It was too horrendous to be believed but it turned out to be the truth. The soldiers themselves were not a bit put out by the warnings their enemies had sent. They would fight all the harder to see that such an affair would not be repeated!
Listening to these stories, it was all Pons could do to keep his emotions from showing on his face. He was beginning to recognise that if Simon was the Devil and all his works, as the Cathars believed, then Giraud de Pepieux—now a Cathar sympathiser—was every bit as skilful an artist in the profession of death as was his enemy!
The trip to Fanjeaux taxed Pons more than he could have ever imagined. True, he was in good physical condition, but his brain was in a whirl, trying to accommodate what he had learned about wickedness—not only of the Crusaders but also the nobles who fought on the side of the believers, Pons’ friends and his family! He had started out as an idealistic young man but was now learning to accept that perhaps it was necessary to fight fire with fire. He wondered what Arnaud and Bertrand Arsen would say were he to state his thoughts out loud. He knew his parents would be horrified. Mindful of his promise to them, he knew that whatever the provocation, he would never kill another human being.
Pons managed to give the newly befriended soldiers the slip that night after arriving outside the town walls of Fanjeaux. He had had a difficult time resisting their blandishments to join their ranks without giving himself and his mission away. After all, who in his right mind would not aspire to the benefits of soldiering: good wages, good food, good companionship and, last but certainly not least, lots of accommodating women? It was a young man’s dream life, all right!
He knew his erstwhile friends—good fellows, all of them—thought he marched to the tune of a different drummer. They had tried several times, without success, to interest him in the doxies who were the camp followers. Because he had not succumbed to the doubtful charms of these women, the young men had assumed that he preferred his own sex. Pons had not attempted to disabuse them of their wrong assumption. (How could he have joined their ranks and kept his beliefs?) He had attended mass with them in an effort to keep their suspicions at bay, but he knew that once he admitted that his religion forbade fighting, they would know too much about him. Best to keep his mouth shut, he decided.
“Come in, my son.” It was Bertrand Arsen who opened the door to Pons’ timid knock. He had not been sure he had come to the right house and was relieved when he entered the well lit room and found Arnaud and two other perfecti sitting on a long bench next to a table. He made his obeisance to the men seated there and awaited their blessing before he spoke.
“This is what you want, I think.” He withdrew the creased parchment from his sleeve.
It took Bertrand only minutes to read it before passing it to the others. “I don’t suppose you have any idea what is in it, do you?” he said, looking at Pons. Pons shook his head. “Well that’s a good thing. Least said, soonest mended. That’s a proverb my old mother taught me and it carries a deal of sense. Now, my boy, you look completely worn out. We will have time tomorrow to talk before you go to Esclarmonde. Take my advice and get as much rest as you can. Pamiers is a long way away. “You must excuse us,” he continued, pulling out a straw palliasse and laying it in a corner near the fire. “We have much to discuss arising from the message you brought from Toulouse. The content does not concern you and you have done well to get it here safely, but we must press on with our plans.”
They had not offered Pons as much as a drink or something to eat. Knowing of their abstemious ways with food and wine, they only ever drank water, Pons realised that tonight he would go to bed hungry. As hungry as he was, he couldn’t help smiling to himself. Oh well, he thought. I suppose it’s no great hardship to give up a meal for the cause.
The elders talked amongst themselves for the better part of an hour. The contents of the parchment had not surprised them. In it Toulouse had told them that Esclarmonde’s brother, the Red Count of Foix, had finally come over to their cause and given up any pretence of fighting on the side of the Crusaders. He had already fought de Montfort’s army in nearby Preixan, had taken back the city and was, even now, marching on Fanjeaux. Toulouse had warned them to escape to the mountains for safety. He had no doubt there would be another battle on their doorstep sooner rather than later.
Chapter Seventeen
Occitania, South of France
Winter 1209 AD - Spring 1210 AD
Simon and Dominic
Simon and what was left of his army were drawing near to Fanjeaux. The last few weeks had taken a terrible toll on his men, and the more than forty fortresses, which had fallen to him like ripe plums early in the campaign, had been, one by one, relentlessly taken back by the heretics and their supporters. Both sides had committed atrocities, and now the news had come that the Count of Foix had reneged on his promise to not take up arms in favour of the heretical forces. It was yet another blow to Simon’s fortunes. When his messengers reported the treachery of the duplicitous Count of Foix in Preixan, the town he had previously helped de Montfort to capture, Simon became nearly apoplectic with rage. He called together his council of war, who seeing his angry face wearing the expression with which they were all too familiar, his knights were solemn as he spoke.
“We will carry out the systematic destruction of these people. We will destroy their houses, their crops and their vines, and take their cattle and whatever other livestock we can find. You will give no quarter. We must sap the confidence as well as the food supplies of all those who do not recognize the supremacy of the Church. We will allow those who recant of their heresy to live. The others we will destroy. Is this understood?”
He looked hard at his soldiers before speaking again. “Is there anyone here who does not understand what I mean? While I will not condone desecration of our churches or the punishment of our clergy, anyone of them who can be shown to have aided our enemy—indeed, any Catholic who can be shown to have given any succour whatsoever to the damned heretics— must be destroyed!”
Amaury, who had listened to this, felt his stomach contract. He knew better than most what this war meant to his father. He had become a man driven by an unnatural fervour for killing. His temper, ever short, now had an even smaller fuse
. How the youth wished for his mother’s return! Even at his age, he recognised that she was the stability in his father’s life, the one person who could calm his demons. He knew they were fighting a war but even he, champion of his father that he was, was beginning to feel glutted by the number of terrible deaths being meted out. They were not clean kills in the time-honoured manner of war. The code of chivalry by which all battles had been fought had all but disappeared in this war. His father was determined to win, whatever the cost, but only now did he realise how far his father was prepared to go to gain his own ends.
“Guillaume of Poissy and his brother were taken at Alaric and have been murdered. We have lost Bouchard; he has been captured and I do not know what fate has befallen him. Gaubert of Essigny died without being given the chance to surrender. These people are like voracious animals, and that’s how we must treat them—like the animals they are! We must take command of all the major roads, which means all the strongholds that guard them must be made to surrender. All the barons must be forced to do homage to me. I am their overlord and suzerain, and they must be made to recognize that fact.”
Simon’s tone began to rise. Amaury knew it wouldn’t be long before he lost control of his temper once more.
“If you please, Father, may I go now and make ready for tomorrow?”
Amaury’s request stopped Simon in full flood. Some of the others also seized the opportunity to beg for permission to leave. No one relished being near Simon when he was in this sort of mood! One by one they filed out of the council chamber, relieved to be able to put a little distance between themselves and their fiery leader
Their arrival in Fanjeaux was met with some celebration as a great column of clerics, led by Dominic de Guzman, came forward to meet them. The greetings were effusive as the important members of each retinue were introduced to each other. Dominic called to mind their last meeting at the dinner celebrating Simon’s friend Bernard’s wedding several years earlier.