by K. M. Grant
In Occitan there hovers still
The grace of Arthur’s table round.
Bright southern heroes yet fulfill
The quest to which they all are bound.
No foreign pennant taints our skies,
No cold French king snuffs out our name.
Though we may fall, again we’ll rise.
No Grail for us, we burn the Flame!
The Flame, the Flame, the Flame of Blue
Sweet Occitan, it burns for you.
When she had finished for the third time, she started again, and then again. And now she wasn’t alone. A humming was heard, like a distant swarm of bees. Through tight lips, tens of throats vibrated, then hundreds, as the humming spread. At the pyre, Aimery’s new French friends drew together, the hairs on the backs of their necks prickling. They looked to Aimery, but it was clear he was powerless to stop it.
As Yolanda sang, a path was cleared for her and she stopped singing only when, at last, she stood where she wanted to be.
“Look at me,” she said to Raimon.
“I can’t,” he said, keeping his eyes on his feet.
“Look at me,” she said again.
He looked, and found it still there, that love he had felt in the dark of the cave: intense, with no gaps into which doubts can creep or petty grievances take root. She was not here to try and guess, from his face, whether he had or had not murdered Girald. She was here because she loved him. That was all. He moved forward until their cheeks were almost touching. He did not have to speak. They breathed the same breath, just as they always had, but this breath was not the childish breath of that first bungled kiss, this breath was rich and deep, filling his veins just as he knew it was filling hers. But then he had to break the spell. He had to tell her.
“I’ve seen the Flame,” he said.
“Yes,” she said, through her tears. “It will be there for you.”
“No, that’s not what I mean. I’ve really seen the Flame. The Knight Magician of the Breeze. He had it—he has it. I told you he’d gone, but he hasn’t, or at least he hadn’t.” He didn’t know whether he’d been clear enough for her to understand. She seemed bemused. She was looking around, as if Parsifal might suddenly appear from nowhere. “Don’t look around, just listen. The Flame’s here. It’s come to help us, I’m sure of that. Don’t give up hope. The Knight Magician—Sir Parsifal—he’ll work out what to do. He must.”
“But what’s the point of the Flame without you? What’s the point of anything?” Her lips were trembling.
He lifted his shackled hands and took hold of hers. “The Occitan,” he said simply. “That’s the point.”
“I’d give it all up to save your life.” She was gripping his hands, trying to mold them into her own.
His face darkened. “Don’t say that. Never say that. I don’t want that. Do you understand? I could never want that.”
The crowd was getting restless. Yolanda gripped his hands even more tightly. She wanted to say something, to do something, that would carry his soul away now, before what was to come, but she couldn’t think of anything. The crowd began to encroach again. Raimon was forced to move forward and she had to let go. As he left her, he turned, and for one blistering second, it was as if they were quite alone, just the two of them, ready to run into the wind. Then he was gone and the crowd, wanting to speed things up, pushed her aside.
She was alone and staring beyond the crowd at the hills behind when Hugh got to her.
“Come,” he said. Though he felt for her, she was still his prize and he was claiming her. She didn’t argue when he lifted her, once again, onto Galahad and took the reins more firmly this time. As soon as the road was clear, he pushed both horses into a gallop. The “Song of the Flame” resounded in his head. No matter, he thought, the clatter of the horses’ hooves would drown it out. He had had enough of the south for the moment.
In the heretics’ cemetery, Raimon was soon strapped to the stake. The soldiers quickly piled brushwood at his feet and then set themselves as guards around the pyre. Aimery gave the signal for silence. There should be no delay now. He began a short speech that was expected and although his voice did not ring out with quite its usual authority, the gist was clear enough. Raimon was a murderer, he said, who had been lawfully tried and sentenced. It was a sad thing for the count of Amouroix to preside over the burning of one of his own, but justice must be done.
The stake dug into Raimon’s back and though nothing was yet lit, he could already smell the smoke. He refused the blindfold. If his eyes were bound, he would be on that road from Limoux, holding his father’s hand, and he did not want that to be his last vision. He wanted to see the sky and the hills, and turn the clouds into animals again. Now that the moment had come he wondered how long it would take to die and was glad that soldiers hid him from the crowd, for he knew that no one can face the flames without fear, although he hoped very much that he could stay silent. When the tapers appeared, their flames invisible in the sunlight, he stared, with great concentration, at a red-tailed eagle sailing lazily overhead.
He could tell that the wood had been lit not from any heat but from the gasps of the crowd. It seemed a curiously long time before he could hear the gust and crackle as sparks teased around the straw. For moments more there was nothing but smoke, then a few rags ignited and their flames wavered, bowed, then sent out tendrils to meet each other, like friends shaking hands. The men with tapers retreated. The pyre was not going to go out now. As the flames grew stronger, they also grew more adventurous. Now Raimon could feel heat under the platform and his eyes began to sting. It could only be a moment before the whole thing was ablaze. He breathed very quickly and then not at all. It was strange, but though it was almost unbearably hot on his feet and the backs of his legs, his face felt deadly cold. The whole world began to turn red and yellow and he was struggling to keep his mouth shut. Any second, he would have to open it and when he did he had no idea what kind of a sound would come out.
There was screaming, which he was sure must be coming from him even though his mouth still seemed to be closed. He felt the wood beneath his feet give way. This was it. This was it. But instead of flames licking his legs, something was arising from the straw. Raimon choked. A human figure, almost a comical figure, for he was half-man, half-haystack, was beside him. And then the figure shook itself and Parsifal, his clothes smoking and his surcoat shredding, was holding the Blue Flame high above his head.
Afterward, everybody swore the Flame was a towering inferno that rose from the heart of the fire like an angel rising from hell. In reality, it flared only a little taller than before but the color it spread was so powerful that the other flames seemed to shrink before it. Parsifal sliced through Raimon’s bonds and took his hand.
“Jump,” he cried. “For God’s sake, jump.” They jumped clam-tight together, and before the two human torches the soldiers fled, and then they were running around the circle of spectators, Parsifal brandishing the Flame, his hands white as chalk and flaking from the heat of the pyre.
“Do you know what this is?” he cried. “I dare you not to know what this is.” They all cowered.
A chink between the soldiers was all Parsifal sought but one would not appear. Nor did the crowd remain an astonished, paralyzed mass. They were no longer interested in Raimon. At last! The Flame! they thought. They crowded in, holding out their hands and Parsifal had to raise the silver salver high above his head, higher than he thought possible, to keep it from being ripped from his hand.
Then the Flame poured downward like a blue fountain and people exclaimed and covered their eyes. Some had to pull back. A chink appeared in the throng. Parsifal dived through it. He could smell his own hair singeing, but he had Raimon’s hand in his and he would not let go.
Aimery stood openmouthed. He began to run forward, then backward, not knowing what to do; by the time he had collected himself, Parsifal and Raimon were away, clambering through the cemeteries then into the woods
while the Flame’s fountain dwindled to a trickle, then to uneven drops, and then dried up altogether, like a firework that has run out of gunpowder. People were shouting, searching and beating the undergrowth with sticks as if Parsifal and Raimon were a pair of foxes or birds to be flushed out. They divided up and beat in quarters. They pushed forward in a long line. But always sticking together, Raimon and Parsifal ducked and weaved, flattening themselves into holes and curling into trees, sometimes being missed only by a whisker. If they could just hold out for long enough, the searchers would grow disheartened and go back to Castelneuf to regroup.
Meanwhile, still down at the cemetery, issuing orders and sending for the hounds, Aimery fumed and the French knights did not disguise their disappointment as the pyre, with nothing to sustain it except Raimon’s unused blindfold, eventually burned itself out.
Hugh’s calculations had been accurate. Yolanda never saw any smoke at all, let alone smoke that turned from sulphurous gray to flame blue. In her head, she went over and over what Raimon had said to her, and what she might have said to him. After an hour, she was quite cold inside and found herself thankful that human beings could only feel so much, and that afterward there was nothing. Perhaps she would never feel anything again. She found, in this new state, that she was glad Brees was not with her. He was part of her old life, her feeling life. Now she would not feel. She would simply be. That was how she’d get through it. And she would find the Blue Flame. She made that vow, although she would never forgive it or the Knight Magician for not being there when Raimon needed them most.
It was long after sunset before Parsifal and Raimon dared to breathe easily. They could still hear the shouts of their pursuers and knew that though they were searching in quite the wrong valley, Aimery would be reluctant to give up and very quickly others would come to join him. This was not a chase to find an escaped criminal. The Blue Flame had turned it into a chase for the Occitan herself.
When he had watched the last of the scenting hounds turn into noisy streaks in the dusk on a hillside far away, Raimon tilted his face to the sky, pulling the evening air into his lungs, relishing the slight chill and prickle on his scalp where his sweat had dried. His hair was as matted as Yolanda’s. He peeled it out of his eyes. It suddenly seemed important to count the stars. He felt he had never looked at them properly before. Parsifal was more circumspect, keeping his eyes open for the hidden scout, the hound dillydallying, the hunter left behind. They must find somewhere safe to rest. They began to walk northward, deeper and deeper into the forests. After a little time, Raimon spilled out his thanks. Parsifal pushed the thanks away.
“You must thank the Flame,” he said. “I was terrified.”
“So was I.”
They walked on. The moon only just penetrated the forest canopy here, and with the trees so tightly closed in behind them, it was almost pitch black. But Parsifal didn’t dare to get out the Flame to use as a lantern. So their progress was slow.
“Sir Parsifal,” Raimon’s voice was deeper than before, and more thoughtful.
“Just Parsifal, please.”
“What do we do next?”
“I would have thought we were going to find Yolanda.”
“Yes,” Raimon said, “that’s what I want to do. I want to get her back more than anything. But I keep thinking. She told me on the bridge that she’d sacrifice the Occitan for me and I told her I didn’t want that, and I really didn’t. So …” He took a deep breath.
“I think I follow you,” said Parsifal.
“You see, Sir Parsifal, I just want to go to her. I can’t imagine not going, yet I know that it’s not the right thing to do because the Flame’s not my flame. Do you understand me? It’s the Flame of the Occitan. I’ve said that so often, I’ve forgotten what it means, but the fire, that heat—” He walked more quickly. “I think I understand better now.”
“Yes.”
“I think Aimery will move fast. If the Flame disappears again, he’ll hand over the Amouroix to King Louis and other counties will follow. And you know how he’ll do it and not be branded a traitor?”
“How?”
“He’ll say that it was he who released the prisoners. People will be grateful. The Cathars will return to their homes. He’ll tell them that he’s acting in their best interest and that if only they do what he wants, everything will be just as it was before Girald came. And when all the hullabaloo about the Flame has died down, which it will if it disappears again, they’ll want to believe him. He’ll offer peace and quiet. That’s what he’ll offer them. By the time they realize exactly what the terms of that peace and quiet are, it’ll be too late.”
“You think they’ll want peace and quiet badly enough to bow to a king they’ve spent decades defying?”
Raimon stopped. “I don’t know,” he said. “All I know is that good people often do nothing in the hope that bad things will just go away. That’s what Count Berengar did. He wasn’t a bad man, not at all, but to be a good man, you have to do more than just mind your own business. Yolanda is my business. She’s everything. I would die for her. But it’s not the time for the Flame to leave the Occitan. The people sang the ‘Song of the Flame’ on the bridge and they saw it at the pyre. If it vanishes again, they’ll lose all faith in it, and if they do that, the Occitan is finished. How can I let that happen?”
Parsifal couldn’t see Raimon’s face, but he could sense the struggle going on as his love of the Occitan and his love for the girl waged war, one against the other. It was a heroic struggle, a struggle fit not for a weaver but for a knight, and though it was a noiseless struggle, it was more agonizing than open battle, for at least in open battle a man can seize his sword or axe and howl as he swings it mindlessly. There could be nothing mindless about this.
“The Flame saved me,” Raimon said, “and now it’s my moment to try and do something for it. I must show what it really stands for, not Catholic or Cathar or even you or me, but all of us together.” He heard Parsifal sigh deeply. “Am I right, Sir Parsifal? Am I right?” He could not afford to make a mistake.
“Just Parsifal, please.” The old knight found it hard to speak. He was thinking of the forty years he had wandered, never recognizing his moment, or never wanting to. This boy put him to shame. But Raimon did not seem to think him shameful for he suddenly placed his own hands, the hands that had so recently been clasped so tightly inside Yolanda’s, within Parsifal’s white ones. They sought comfort and found it. Then Parsifal let go and took the Flame out of its pouch. No matter what the danger, they must see it now. It sat in its salver, just as it had when Parsifal had first set eyes on it and here, at this moment, though it did nothing special, it was more intensely the Flame of the Occitan burning for two of its own than it had ever been before.
A long time later, Parsifal returned it to the pouch and when he did, without a word, both he and Raimon turned around. They would go back to Castelneuf and they would offer not peace and quiet but sacrifice and struggle. They would not hide the Flame but display it openly for all to see, and with it they would confront the poisons of their time and cut them out. And if they failed and the Occitan was swallowed up in blood and fire, history would never, ever record that they had not tried their best.
After that there would be Yolanda. She would come back to an Occitan where they would dance and never have to stop. At least that’s what Raimon hoped. No, he knew it must be more than hope. It was what he had to believe.
I shall sleep now. This is a good moment to rest. Old countries, like old men, get tired, you know. But when I wake I shall resume my tale for there is a great deal more to tell.
Author’s Note
Heretics and inquisitors! The very words are still enough to send shivers down the spine, and there is no better starting off place for a novelist than a bit of a shiver. It was a shiver that lit the spark for Blue Flame. I was also intrigued by the idea of heretic treasure—something you bump into in history as well as fiction—and the idea that such
treasure could be more mysterious than silver or gold or even a Holy Grail.
Where to set such a story? It became obvious quite quickly: in Occitania, a place that is more than just a place. When? In the thirteenth century, a time uncomfortably full of upheaval. And the treasure? The Blue Flame of the title, lit at the time of Christ’s death and brought to Occitania in her hour of need.
A little explanation is necessary. You will not find Occitania on a contemporary map, although it once stretched across the whole of southern France, into northern Italy, and over the Pyrenean mountains into Spain. Its name springs from the Romance language spoken by Occitanians: the Langue d’Oc as opposed to the northern Langue d’Oil. Although a land of many regions, Occitania was famous throughout for its troubadours, those medieval masters of song and poetry, and for courts filled with color and life. A knight like Sir Hugh des Arcis, a major character in Blue Flame, whose home is in the grayer north, would have found a first visit to an Occitanian chateau quite an experience. He’d have enjoyed the weather, too.
In the 1200s, however, Occitania was already under threat, the trouble half religious and half territorial. Successive kings of France, ardent Catholics all, took exception to the presence of the Cathars, a Christian sect labeled as heretics by the Catholic Church, which—even after a vicious and extended crusade designed to wipe it out—continued to make Occitania its power base.
Yet nothing was simple. Not all the Occitanian aristocracy were Cathars. Some, indeed, were as fiercely Catholic as King Louis, with many more, like my completely fictional Count Berengar of Amouroix, perfectly happy for both Catharism and Catholicism to flourish side by side. Nor did everybody always view King Louis as an enemy. Sometimes, when quarreling with each other, the Occitan nobility found him a useful ally. The hopes that Aimery, Count Berengar’s son, harbors of a place in the French king’s household would have been entirely plausible. Thirteenth-century Occitania was, above all, a time to watch both your back and your front, for the line between friend and enemy was extremely fluid and the penalties for finding yourself on the wrong side were bloody indeed.
