The Convoy

by Sebastien Acacia

  KATHARS

  2 - THE CONVOY

  Sébastien Acacia

  www.kathars.com

  www.facebook.com/kathars

  Follow me on my YouTube channel: Sébastien Acacia

  Cover illustration: Eleonora Conti

  Translation : Gaulthier Marrel

  Copyright © 2019 Sébastien Acacia

  Publisher Les Inclassables

  All rights reserved.

  From the same author

  The Ninth Planet Trilogy

  (Available on Amazon and Apple Store)

  Volume 1 - The Signal

  French version only Tome 2 – L’Expédition

  French version only Tome 3 – Exodus

  Kathars series

  Volume 1 - Escaping

  French version only Viralata – Le fils du Caïman

  (Available on Amazon and Apple Store)

  Acknowledgements

  This book is dedicated to my 7-year-old son, Anthony. Despite my most ardent wishes, I know that he will never read it, but it’s for him and thanks to him, that I decided to change paths, and pursue a writing career. I also dedicate this book to all parents of autistic children, especially those who think that their lives have stopped. Never give up.

  Thanks to the Brasserie du Commerce de Besançon, which provides me every day with an amazing Golden Age atmosphere to devote myself into writing.

  Thanks to Eleonora Conti for the amazing cover illustration she has done for this book. Thanks to Vanaly for her advice and to all the people who have taken part, in any way, into the emergence of this new series.

  Disclaimers

  This is a fictional work, based on true facts, places which I dream about and people I shared many moments of my life with. Nevertheless, any resemblance to actual or past events is purely coincidental.... Or almost.

  Wilful servitude

  The main door had no handle. This simple fact had been tormenting Esclarmonde for now seven days. There should be an opening mechanism as three young women were coming every day to bring a delicious assortment of dishes on the big carved wood table furnishing her too luxurious prison. Seven days without any single news from Inosanto. Seven! Esclarmonde was relating to this symbolic digit as she would hold on the highest climbing hold of a too steep cliff to get down. Matilda was excelling at this exercise. Excelling? Even this word couldn’t properly describe her physical prowess. She was still remembering when she had won the yearly contest of the 10 Tibesti challenges. She was just 16 years old, but she was old enough to make a fool of all the other contestants, men and women, even the most experienced adults, and this quite easily. It was the first time the inhabitants of the small community of Kalia had seen one of them climbing so fast the highest cliff of this impressive mountainous massif, a true stronghold on the edge of the huge Sahara. How beautiful her daughter, Matilda, was. How strong and agile she was. Such a personality and Esclarmonde perfectly knew whom she got it from. But where had this sturdy character been gone? Softened by the surrounding luxury? Tamed by the outstanding view she had from her quarters, on the Amazonian Forest abounding as never before? Surrendered to the exquisite sweet taste of the fresh mangos brought to her every morning in those splendid noble wood baskets carved with various animals. Or maybe, this was all due to her growing awareness she was helpless in her situation that she had difficulty to analyse.

  While she was looking at a trio of shimmering Araras hovering a few dozen yards from the glass window, she heard the door mechanism operating.

  Don’t turn back! Don’t turn back!

  It was an unusual time for visitors. She was already picturing Inosanto removing his hood, trying to impress her. A last trace of her ego was ordering her not to yield to fear, but to rather show off some dignity.

  “Madam, please kindly follow me!”

  Even if the words were welcoming, the voice was an order. Nevertheless, she was sure this person wasn’t Inosanto. She confirmed her thought, when, while she turned back, Esclarmonde faced a militiaman of the Prophet’s personal guard. In other instances, a single man to escort her would have given her some rebellion and escaping ideas. Despite her advanced age, a kick of the knee in the right place during a split second of inattention, and the problem would be solved. Nevertheless, a member of the Milicia Christi was worth at least 10 ordinary men. Without further formalities, Esclarmonde followed the God’s soldier, dressed in black, with his feline muscles and his henna-dyed eyes, the only part of his body that simple mortal could see.

  For the first time in seven days, Esclarmonde was finally discovering the architectural features of the Church’s installations. According to the size of the room she was staying in, she had developed the idea the building should be very impressive, and she wasn’t disappointed. The corridors were never ending, so wide that a typical housing unit of Kalia could have easily fitted in, and there would still be some room to go around with a rural quad. The lighting was provided by endless neons hidden behind glass panels arranged at man level. Esclarmonde was constantly struggling, trying to remember the countless bifurcations they took and how many floors they were currently going through in the elevator leading them to the heart of the installations.

  Right, then right again, then left, then right, go to the end, take a left toward the elevator, or maybe go right? I don’t remember. Take a right. Yes, that’s it, turn right. B 22. B? Basement? Hum, basement 22. How many floors in total? 100? 120? ...OK, let’s start again! Right, then right again, then left and left again...

  Her heart was beating too fast, too strong; it was even disturbing her thoughts and she couldn’t focus efficiently. The militiaman’s stranger and pleasant perfume was hovering in the air, challenging her. Esclarmonde couldn’t link what she thought as the quintessence of totalitarianism with such a nice fragrance of plant natural essence which existence she couldn’t even imagine. Everything was disturbing. She was supposed to feel bad, to feel in jail, deprived of her freedom to the point of holding it against the whole world. However, she was considering herself as a remarkably available and freed woman, even sometimes nonchalant. The few words Inosanto confessed when he came to see her, seven days ago, were appeasing her conscience.

  “Oh, I find no pleasure imagining you deeply suffering thinking something could have happened to your daughter, so just know she is alive.”

  He denied her any further comment and answer to the questions Esclarmonde asked about the fates awaiting her. Knowing she was alive but ignoring anything else about her condition acted as a strong analgesic and, against all odds, she was spared from long sleepless nights.

  The elevator door finally opened on a gateway overlooking at an enormous space. The other side was barely visible. Esclarmonde quickly understood it was a huge lab when she saw a few laboratory technicians with their white coat, who seemed busy with various tasks around some devices all more sophisticated than the last. Urged by the militiaman, who, without touching her, led her to a big glass door on the left, she barely got the time to look at a few pharmaceutical-type containers filled with many kinds of seeds. The same ones some workers seemed to be manipulating.

  The closer she got, the more she could decipher the terrifying Christian cross piercing a python, the Church’s symbol, directly engraved in the opaque glass of the door. Nothing was visible through it. What was hiding behind this glass wall? Time seemed to have paused. The closer she got, the further her mind wandered. Was she seeing the shadow of a few people on the other side or was it just a mind trick? The oppressing presence of the superman following her reminded her everything was quite real. That the door would finally open. That she would get the answers to the purpose of her being in the main installation of this damned Church she spent all her life fighting against. The sa
me Church which forced her into exile and an anonymous life, which cut all her ties with her relatives, the man she loved, the father of her daughter.

  Guilhabert!

  One more time, a door opened in front of her, revealing the unknown, bearing the promises of answers to all the questions she had dwelt on for too long, never finding any fulfilment. This was probably the place where Guilhabert had spent the last 20 years of his life. But, on which task was he working? Why did he run away? What was in the small nano-container he had buried in the cold mud of the rice field? Did the Kathars manage to save Matilda? How was she feeling? Was she scared?

  “Professor Lecuyer!” The Prophet declared even before she could identify him. “Welcome in my laboratory.”

  He didn’t even bother standing from his ultramodern armchair, looking very comfortable, in which he was sitting. Esclarmonde carefully entered the room. The militiaman took his position next to the door, which immediately closed. Esclarmonde came to her senses. She didn’t look at Inosanto, preferring instead looking at the room arrangement, at the instruments and technology available there. For how long hadn’t she been close to a stirrer, to an autoclave, to a centrifuge or even next to a thermal cycler? For how long hadn’t she seen scalpels neatly arranged in a kidney dish? According to the solvent odour, the laboratory had a cleanliness level very suitable for efficient research activities with proper working conditions. Inosanto was observing her moving toward the working plan. Pulling away from the Prophet, she carefully placed her finger on one of the devices looking different from the others and bent over to find further information.

  “You aren’t dreaming, this is indeed a scanning tunnelling microscope, a Rohrer IV STM,” Inosanto timely told her with this slight Brazilian accent defining him.

  Esclarmonde chose not to answer, straightening to move further away, toward another state-of-the art equipment. Her inquisitive nature pushed her toward it.

  “An atomic force microscope,” Inosanto calmly commented.

  “I know!” Esclarmonde answered curtly, without even looking at him.

  A slight smile appeared on the old man’s face. He quickly got what he wanted.

  “Why am I here?” She asked, turning back in order to finally face him.

  Inosanto was going to answer but she interrupted him before he could say a single word.

  “Why did you have Victor killed”

  “I’m sorry for...”

  “And where is Matilda?” She interrupted him again.

  “If you let me...”

  “What about Paul? What did you do with him?”

  Annoyed, the old Prophet raised his voice, while his facial features hardened.

  “Shut up!” He strongly retorted, authoritatively.

  This rise of anger was directly followed by a loose cough, making his blunt intervention completely pathetic. Esclarmonde could have seized this opportunity to end the reign of the man she considered as the worst enemy of civilisation. She was only sixteen feet away from the filthy religious beast she had been dreaming for so long of striking down, like Saint-Georges slew the dragon. What was the probability the militiaman in post in the corridor would have enough time to stop her for cutting the throat with one of the scalpels of the kidney dish at hand? Inosanto’s cough was lasting. The old Prophet was twisting in pain every time his chest was contracting. It was a fantastic opportunity. The kidney dish was just three feet away from the high priestess who had founded the Kathars. While she was getting closer to take one of the deadly sharp blades, without even raising his head to catch her red-handed, Inosanto made a superhuman effort to speak to her.

  “I’m suffering, but I’m not naive, Professor Lecuyer.”

  Esclarmonde removed her hand she had just laid on the kidney dish.

  “I...?”

  “I don’t expect you to co-operate that easily, just overnight, without resisting a bit.”

  Esclarmonde exhaled silently, relieved.

  He hasn’t seen anything...

  Inosanto added.

  “If I knew it was you, your husband wouldn’t be dead right now. Concerning your daughter, I have no idea where she’s hiding. Probably caught by those damned rebels.”

  Phoebus, you succeeded!

  “Paul?”

  “If you co-operate, you’ll see him again.”

  “Of course, I have to take your words for granted, haven’t I?”

  After a last loud eructation, Inosanto gestured her to look at one of the four screens, arranged high enough just behind her.

  “I was suspecting you would say that.”

  He tapped on a touch glass plate on the right arm of his armchair and a recording from a surveillance camera appeared on the screen.

  “Paul!” Esclarmonde called out.

  He was crouched, his head between his knees, naked, or maybe wearing a simple fabric over his genitals, leaning on one of the walls of the nefarious and dark cell barely bigger than the cellar through which Matilda had escaped. An empty and dirty plate surrounded by crumbles and a few completely gnawed bones, lying in front of him, was testifying of a meal desperately eaten.

  “What have you done to him?” She yelled, moving toward the old man.

  “If you agree to carry on your husband’s work, we won’t do anything to him! Otherwise, I fear he will be burdened by a sordid destiny.”

  Resigned and disgusted, Esclarmonde moved back toward the kidney dish, hoping she could discretely put back the scalpel she was hiding with a long sleeves of her tunic.

  “Don’t bother,” Inosanto interrupted her. “You will need it for the biopsy.”

  Esclarmonde’s face became completely red. Ashamed, she revealed the scalpel she was holding in her hand, proudly staring at the old Prophet.

  “The biopsy?” She asked surprised.

  “Oh! Don’t try to make me believe you didn’t understand what this is about, you, the great microbiologist, specialised in human DNA and cell manipulation.”

  Esclarmonde looked at the screen one more time. Paul wasn’t moving. Was she seeing some bruises on his flank?

  “What do you expect from me?”

  “I want you to find a treatment to cure the symptoms harming me.”

  Surprised, she took some time to think, trying to stay indifferent to the recording from the surveillance camera.

  “I don’t really understand. Wasn’t it your God who had sentenced you to such sufferings? How could humankind science interfere in any way with a divine punishment?”

  “Do you have any idea about what I’m suffering, the unbearable pains caused by the stigmata?” He asked her, removing his hood and opening his tunic widely, revealing a swollen chest which skin was at an advanced decomposition stage, swarming like something alive which couldn’t get stable - without any biological equilibrium.

  Feeling a huge disgust but also a weird part of compassion, Esclarmonde couldn’t keep from moving away.

  “God condemned me to suffer for eternity, but He never forbade me to cure it, or at least, to appease it.”

  “Please, clear all my doubts, is this what Victor was working on during the last years?”

  “Indeed, but with very little success,” Inosanto mourned

  “Victor was a world-renowned scientist, the best in his field. Why do you think I will do better than him?”

  “I’ve no idea! I just know that in my situation, I can at least afford trying the best I can.”

  The motivations of the crazy old man were at least completely honest and coherent. A few seconds of thinking were enough so Esclarmonde could realistically analyse the situation. Of course, she would do the same thing if she were to suffer for eternity. But was she really believing about this alleged eternity? This wasn’t the question. She looked at the screen one last time.

  Paul...

  Fully aware she had no choice, she got closer to the Prophet, who was hardly sitting, each of his muscles, each of his cells shouting for help. After taking a glass Petri dish on the w
orking plan, she drew the scalpel next to the purulent chest, barely hiding her hesitating shaking hand, which couldn’t decide between stroking a deadly wound and taking a sample according to the scientific standards.

  Paul, Matilda, I’m doing this for you...

  The shaking scalped reached the swollen skin next to the Prophet’s left pectoral muscle, just a few inches away from his carotid.

  “Take a deep breath, Professor Lecuyer,” Inosanto quietly told her after carefully laying his hand on hers to stop its flickering. “We will achieve some great things together, I’m sure of it.”

  Esclarmonde briefly looked at the surprisingly soft face of her persecutor, discreetly swallowed and regulated her breathing. Deep in herself, she was remembering her oath.

  Happy the one living for science and improving the world... and who will overcome darkness through science.

  “All right, I agree to help you, but under one condition,” she told him.

  “You can always try,” the Prophet retorted, exasperated.

  “Take Paul out of this filthy cell, offer him the same living conditions you have given me.”

  A long silent settled. The scalpel blade was dangerously skimming the purulent skin, but Esclarmonde wasn’t shaking any more. Inosanto slightly pushed on her hand until the sharp blade of the surgical device imperceptibly penetrated one of the stigmata.

  “First, get some results, then, I promise you, I will think about it,” he finally answered her, smiling.

  *

  * *

  Montségur

  Paralysed by time and history, the imposing fortress of Montségur was one more time witnessing pivotal events for humankind future. Were the people taking part in meeting aware of it? Did they fully understand the stakes hidden behind their decisions? Could they at least consciously act according to the Faydits’ legacy, these excommunicated Cathar knights and lords, guilty of heresy or of disobeying the Church, who died to protect the pog, its castrum, its houses and it population? Phoebus and Trancavel certainly could. Blanche, probably? What about Matilda? Without any doubt, no! She was carefully listening to Trancavel who was introducing the strategy developed in emergency to steal the precious atomic piles from the Church. Without them, finding back Esclarmonde and overthrowing Inosanto would just remain a pious wish. Trancavel was manipulating a screen lying flat and the members were surrounding it. He was moving some items, zooming in, rotating them, and linking them. His moves were quite unusual for Matilda, the young farmer without any technological background. The pawns were taking position on the satellite map of France. Step by step, the outline of a sabotage attempt was coming to life, as bold as it was loopy. Matilda was looking at Trancavel, respectfully but also a bit challenging. She thought he was handsome but too old. Macho, but fair. Whatever, she was recognising a leadership position in him and she felt it was intuitive. Nobody was opposing his opinions and ideas. The embodied alpha male.