Tens of thousands of our people have been slaughtered since the dawn of this century, when Simon de Montford, Dominic Guzmàn and thirty thousand Crusader knights descended on Languedoc like a dark plague, destroying everyone and everything in their path. Finding it difficult to separate Roman Catholics from the Christians and Perfecti of our church, the Crusaders were commanded to ‘kill them all, as God would know his own’.
Over fifteen thousand people were massacred in the town of Bèziers alone, many of whom were inside the church of Mary Magdalene, where they prayed for deliverance. The church was set ablaze and all were burned alive—neither sex, nor age, nor rank were spared.
This horrendous event took place ten years before I was born. I cannot remember a time when my people did not live in fear of their lives, their faith and their souls. And for what purpose has the Church of Rome hunted and slaughtered our people? The answer is simple: our faith, our knowledge, our history is a threat to them for we have in our possession something more meaningful than the advent of any faith. The church and its crusader knights have already destroyed most of the principality of Occitania in search of this treasure. Perpignan, Carcassonne, Toulouse and Narbonne have all been laid to waste and the few survivors fled here to Montsègur. As it is the last stronghold of gnostic thought and study in Occitania, our persecutors have assumed that the ancient treasure is hidden in Montsègur—the Inquisition and its crusaders will not stop until this fortress has been searched and levelled.
In the year 1241, Montsègur was besieged by Raymond VII, the Count of Toulouse. He sympathised with our faith, and only half-heartedly surrounded our fortress when he was forced to by the king of the Franks to whom he had pledged allegiance after the fall of his city. All lines of trade remained open and our people felt no threat from the count’s forces. By autumn that siege had all but dissolved.
In spring 1242, Raymond d’Alfaro, the bailiff at Avignonet, sent a letter to the Lord of Montsègur, Pierre-Roger Mirepoix. This communiqué advised that the chief Inquisitors of Toulouse—Etienne de Saint, Guillaume Arnaud and their assistants—were going to be arriving in Avignonet in a few days. Since the formation of the dreaded Holy Inquisition in 1233, the Church of Rome has inflicted torture and death on thousands of our people. Our lord and his loyal supporters did not hesitate to hatch a plan to destroy the party of friars before they could inflict their toll on the faithful of Avignonet.
As the Perfecti—the church leaders—of our faith reject all violence, we advised against the attack and the drawing of more ill will to our community. Yet our lord and his men, being Credenti (believers) and hardened warriors, refused to allow another bloody incursion to take place in the name of the Church of Rome.
Our lord assembled a force of knights in the Antioch woods. Guillaume de Lahille, Bernard de Saint-Martin and Guillaume de Balaguire led a force into Avignonet under the cover of darkness. Our assassins were guided to the quarters where the Inquisitors were sleeping and the ten friars therein were disposed of. It was said that there was not a skull among the dead that was whole enough to take as a trophy and drink a victory toast from.
This massacre was considered a victory by our men-at-arms, as there were widespread revolts in Occitania against the Crown following the assassinations. But by January 1243, Frankish forces allied to Rome had put down the revolution.
The fort at Montsègur was dubbed ‘the synagogue of Satan’ and on the day of the Feast of the Ascension in May 1243, which marked the anniversary of the assassinations of the church’s Inquisitors, warriors from Gascony and Aquitaine began to pour into the valley below Montsègur.
By the last day of the year of 1243, several attempts had been made by our enemies to scale the Roc de la Tour, our first major defensive position on the mount. Our knights feared that the Crown would capture the position before long.
For the first time since I had arrived at Montsègur, having fled Narbonne with my younger sister, it was feared that the church could seize the sacred treasure currently housed in the fortress and so plans to shift it to safer keeping had to be made.
In normal circumstances, such conspiracies are hardly a woman’s business, but as my sister and I, by virtue of our bloodline, were charged with delivering the ancient treasure to Montsègur prior to the fall of Narbonne, it again has fallen to us to decide where best our family legacy can be delivered for preservation and security.
As a scholar, scribe and a daughter of the blood, it is my duty to keep a record of the plight of my family and our holy legacy, so that in future ages the truth might be known. Our days would seem numbered and yet I intend to record our plight until I draw final breath and leave the barbarity of the world of the dark lord, Rex Mundi, behind to find my eternal repose in the higher kingdoms of the god of love.
JANUARY 10TH 1244
On the first of January, a courier from Saint-Paul-Cap-de-Joux arrived bearing letters from our brethren in Cremona. With the aid of an ancient map, this courier, Jean Ray, managed to bypass our besiegers, who were growing more and more discouraged by their lack of progress. The fact that this man negotiated a safe passage through our mountain gave we Perfecti of Montsègur hope that our secret treasure might be dispatched from this fortress in safety—but to what destination?
A meeting of our church and political leaders was held that evening and Bishop Bertrand Marty suggested that we test the route we were to take out of the fortress, and to that end, two warriors were assigned to follow Jean Ray as he retraced his steps back down the mountain with what remained of Montsègur’s treasury. We would send the party to the chateau of Blancheford, near Rennes-Le-Chàteau. There, the descendants of the late Bertrand de Blanchefort, the fourth Grand Master of the Temple knights, still maintained contact with the inner order of the knights known as the ‘Chevaliers de l’Ordre de Notre Dame de Sion’, the ‘Prieurè de Sion’, or just ‘P.S.’. If our warriors got through, they could also ask for assistance for Montsègur.
The priestesses of the Holy Mother have had a secret connection with the knightly order since 1127, the year that a part of the sacred treasure that I am bound to protect was entrusted to my order. The Grand Master of the Order of Sion at the time, who carried the title of the Defender of the Sacred Sepulchre, was Hugues de Payens. He headed a party of Temple knights who journeyed from Jerusalem to the Champagne Court at Troyes carrying many spoils from the first crusade. St Bernard, who was supervising the safe passage of the holy treasures through France, advised Hugues de Payens that two items amongst the holy bounty were best left with my sisters for safekeeping.
It had been the Order de Sion which had forewarned my order of the pending attack on Narbonne, requesting that the items guarded by my order be moved to Montsègur. I hoped that the Grand Master of the order could now suggest a secure destination for these items.
On the third of January our bishop’s plan was executed. Under the cover of darkness, two warriors and the courier would climb down the sheer western face of the mountain, and into a secret passage carrying the bulk of the city’s material wealth and a communiqué to the Grand Master of the P.S.
As we have had no word of the party’s capture, all we can do now is wait and hope for aid before it is too late.
Last night, Gascon mountain troops scaled the northeastern tip of the pog and finally succeeded in taking the Roc de la Tour. It will not be long before their catapults are in range of our fortress walls and then all will be lost.
FEBRUARY 25TH 1244
For the past two months there has been little to report but our slow defeat, destruction and death. Our enemies have effectively fought their way toward the fortress and now the Catholic catapults are close enough to launch their huge stone missiles into the inhabited terraces of Montsègur with fatal accuracy. The bodies of the dead are piling up and without excess wood to burn them, disease will surely be next.
Our warriors have launched several counterattacks in the hope of dislodging the enemy, but since their capture of the
Roc de la Tour many reinforcements have arrived.
All hope of surviving this siege has now dissipated, and yet, so long as our sacred treasure remains concealed within Montsègur, surrender is not an option. We have been forced to consider evacuating our treasure without any directive from the P.S., for if we do not our worst fears will be realised.
MARCH 2ND 1244
Praise be to the Great Mother. Two nights ago our prayers for an end to this conflict, one way or another, were finally answered. In the past week we have lost several of our finest sergeants to stone missiles, so this godsend comes not a day too soon.
Our courier has finally returned with a knight of the order to which we appealed for help. The knight, surprisingly, is not a Frank, as are many of the Sion Order. He is a recruit from the Scottish faction, in the service of Marie de Saint-Clair, who inherited the position of Grand Master of the Sion Knights from her late husband Jean de Gisors upon his death in 1220.
This Grand Master has surprised me with the extent of her knowledge about my order and the treasures in our possession, and she has sent with her knight a very detailed plan as to how we should proceed to escape with these sacred items from Montsègur. I shall detail these orders as they come to pass, save unwelcome eyes should chance upon my work before our plan can be executed.
Yesterday, in accordance with Marie de Saint-Clair’s suggestion, our lord, Pierre-Roger Mirepoix, left the fortress to negotiate terms of surrender. Our enemy offered what, on the surface, appeared to be very generous terms. Our men-at-arms would receive a full pardon and could depart the fortress with all of their wealth and weapons. Our citizens, including we Perfecti, would be freed, provided we denounced our heretical beliefs. In other words, we must convert to the Church of Rome and in so doing must disclose our knowledge, and the whereabouts of those most sacred items which thousands of the faithful have martyred themselves to protect. A fifteen-day truce was granted so that we could consider the terms, at the end of which time Montsègur would be handed over to our invaders. In return for these generous terms, our lord agreed to hand over hostages to the Franks. If any among us tried to escape, the hostages would be killed.
These hostages were volunteers from our men-at-arms, who knew next to nothing about the sacred cause for which they fought, or of the secret plan behind our surrender.
As I watched the twenty knights march from the fortress, I prayed that I might do my job well. These imperfect men, sinners and killers all, were not yet ready to meet their maker, and I did not wish to feel responsible if they were slain before they could choose redemption through the rite of consolamentum.
Warriors almost always choose to take this sacred rite on their deathbed, because being infused with a spark of the divine and carrying that sacred gift within one’s physical body for the remainder of one’s life is an impossible burden for a fighting man. A Perfecti dedicates the self to honouring the Holy Spirit within and forsakes the consumption of animal flesh, swearing, sexual intercourse for personal gratification and must never abuse another living soul. We guard with our lives the higher mysteries that are disclosed to us and a Perfecti would never forsake the truth in fear of burning, drowning or any other kind of death. Although staunch believers in our faith, many of our warriors fear falling short of these vows before their warring days are done. And yet, as the rite of consolamentum must be undertaken consciously, it is at great risk to their souls that our fighting men postpone their salvation. So, in the event that these men should, during their defence of the cause, be left conscious but dying and deprived of speech, they have already completed the ceremony of convenenza. Convenenza declares that the aspirant has granted permission for one of the Perfecti to speak on his behalf during the rite of consolamentum and so ensure his soul is saved before death.
If Christ is with us then all twenty of these knights will survive long enough to be rewarded with their salvation.
MARCH 14TH 1244—SPRING EQUINOX
Tomorrow the truce expires.
How can I describe the anguish of witnessing my closest friends and respected colleagues come to terms with their impending death? Not a one of the one hundred and eighty Perfecti surviving at Montsègur is prepared to accept the terms we have been offered. Just as the thousands of believers who have died before us chose martyrdom over a lie, so shall all those here. Except my sister and myself. Sadly, we have been assigned another fate, and although I know our mission is a vital one, it does not ease the guilt and envy that I feel in my soul.
Guilt—that I must lie whilst my brethren die bravely for the cause. Envy—because tomorrow my fellow Perfecti shall finally achieve salvation. Their souls will be freed by the flame from this evil prison of flesh and blood, in which I must remain and continue to suffer.
Tonight will mark the last supper of the true faith at Montsègur, and just as Jesus shared the Bread of Life with his apostles to strengthen their steadfastness during the torments to come, so shall all the faithful among us be rewarded. I have full permission from the Grand Master of Sion to allow our bishop to aid our people in this way. Then, any among us who choose death on the morrow, including the men-at-arms, shall be given the choice to be set apart as one of the Perfecti, by being granted the rite of consolamentum.
MARCH 15TH 1244
The truce has expired.
Early this morning our lord descended to the camp of the enemy to assure Hugues de Archis that the fortress would be handed over as promised. When asked if all the besieged were prepared to accept the terms of surrender, our lord informed him that over half the remaining occupants were not prepared to relinquish their faith.
‘Then, in accordance with the law of the Holy Inquisition, they will burn on the morrow at dawn,’ Pierre Amiel, Archbishop of Narbonne, decreed.
I have never met the church representative who was installed in the town of my birth after my timely exodus. I know this man to be responsible for the deaths of those I grew up with and feel sure that there could not be a more wretched embodiment of Rex Mundi alive in this world.
Since the truce, the archbishop has kept his crusader knights busy building a large wooden holding yard and filling it with firewood—to burn any of the Perfecti that hold firm to their faith.
The Lord of Montsègur could not believe that, following the rite held last night by our bishop which all believers had been invited to attend, over twenty of his men-at-arms had chosen to receive the rite of consolamentum, condemning themselves to death on the morrow.
Pierre-Roger Mirepoix had not attended the rite. He had no intention of dying, and hence had precious need of absolution. In his mind, he had done nothing but try to fulfil his duty to the citizens of Montsègur. He chose instead to keep watch on the fortress wall, along with several other knights.
This morning Lord Mirepoix inquired of his faithful mercenary knights, Guillaume de Lahille and Bernard de Saint-Martin, why they had converted when in two days time they could have left Montsègur free men and pardoned of their crimes against the church? The knights, who had led the massacre of the inquisitors of Avignonet, replied that when they had received the Bread of Life they had glimpsed the true kingdom of god and thus had lost all desire for this world. They now realised the error of their ways and having been absolved of their sins against god, they wished to depart this world as one of the ‘pure ones’ before conflict could again tarnish their souls.
Of course their motives came as no surprise to any of we Perfecti, for such is the effect of manna upon the soul, even in the smallest of quantities.
LESSON 17
SURRENDER
MARCH 16TH 1244
This will be my last account of my time at Montsègur, and it is with a heavy heart and conscience that I put pen to parchment.
This morning over two hundred Perfecti marched down from the fortress and into the large wood-filled stockade at the southern foot of the mountain, where they were burned en masse. Some were cast into the flames by their captors, but most flung themselves
into the huge pyre, more than willing to depart this world.
The remainder of the garrison was confined to the fortress and were compelled to look on—my sister, Lilutu, and myself were hidden among them, disguised as warrior knights. We do not fear death, any more than our brethren, but our destiny is to follow a different path of suffering.
The winds carried the horrendous death cries of my brethren to my ears and then swept them away just as efficiently. And although their suffering will haunt my consciousness the rest of my days, I did not feel compelled to weep, for I knew their joy and envied them their spiritual liberation. The sound of restrained weeping then caught my attention and the source was close by.
I was surprised and ashamed to look beside me and find tears rolling down Lilutu’s face. ‘Turn away if you must, and block your ears. But do not expose yourself. No warrior would weep,’ I whispered to her.
My sister turned from the fires and sank to her haunches, breathing deep in an attempt to stop her flow of tears. ‘How can you be so cold? These are our friends, our family.’
‘Would you have their sacrifice be in vain?’ I snapped. She knew as well as I what was at stake. ‘All is lost if you cannot refrain from expressing your selfish sentiment.’
The Franks had assured our men-at-arms that they would be free to leave Montsègur on the morrow, but there was no guarantee that we would be left alone until that time, for our enemies had made idle promises before. Lilutu and I may have been able to pass as warriors at a distance, as we were both quite tall for our gender, but at close range our chain mail and warrior tunics wouldn’t, in all likelihood, prevent our discovery.
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