The Fire and the Light

by Glen Craney

  When these visions finally receded, the knight on the kneeler turned toward her. Her heart leapt with joy—she rushed into Guilhelm’s embrace burning with desire. She was lost in a kiss a hundred times more powerful than their first on Montsegur. She opened her eyes to stare into his loving gaze.

  Folques—not Guilhelm—was kissing her.

  The Cistercian held her so forcefully that she feared her soul would be stolen through her breath. She knew with a frightening certitude that if she did not escape his clutches, she would suffer a fate worse than bodily death. She began praying the Cathar Pater Noster. “Our Father, who art the Light ...”

  Folques captured her face with his tightening hands. “Who art in Heaven!”

  She refused to speak the Roman version of the prayer that had transmogrified Christ’s original words. “Hallowed be Thy hidden name!”

  “Not hidden!” demanded Folques. “It is Jehovah!”

  “To Thy Kingdom lead our return!”

  “His Kingdom shall come here! On Earth! As it is in Heaven!”

  “Of Thy nature grant us to learn—”

  His hands tightened around her throat. “You must believe!”

  She fought against his grip. “Give us this day our suprastantial bread and forgive us our trespasses! As we forgive those who trespass against us!”

  A searing Light descended and forced Folques to release his hold in order to shield his face. Repelled by the power of the authentic Cathar Prayer, his simulacrum began to dissolve. He raised a host of leavened bread to her in a last desperate plea. “Eat the body of Christ!”

  An explosion percussed Esclarmonde backwards.

  She was transported to a circular classroom circumscribed by fluted capitals. Castres and three elders, draped in white robes, sat above her. She had never seen the Bishop in any attire but black. She then remembered having been taught that in the Realm of Light, the true nature of a corporeal object is the reverse of what our outer eyes perceive.

  “You are in the Temple of the Brotherhood,” said Castres.

  She heaved from the pounding in her chest, still recovering from Folques’s spiritual attack. How did I get here?

  “By willing it with your heart.”

  Castres was answering her thoughts before she spoke them. He descended the steps and crowned her with a golden band that held a carved serpent’s head and a tail. A buzzing sensation began to build inside her skull. He lifted his staff and cast it to the floor. The rod came alive and slithered toward her feet.

  “Why was the Serpent condemned?” he asked.

  A jolt of heat shot up the meridian of her core. “Because it tempted Adam and Eve to eat the fruit.”

  Castres and the elders evaluated the timbre of her responses with equal interest as their content. “What did the serpent have to gain by such a temptation?” Finding her at a loss, Castres answered his own question, “Perhaps the serpent’s offer of knowledge was not a temptation, but a selfless sacrifice.”

  Esclarmonde felt as if she was extracted from normal consciousness—another voice now spoke through her. “The world was flawed at creation. The God of Light wished to send his goodness forth, but the Demiurge imprisoned its sparks in grossness of this world.” This was the voice she had heard during every crisis of her life: the voice of her own Robe of Light.

  “You have learned to trust your higher self. Ask now, and receive.”

  “How do I attain enlightenment?”

  “The gnosis unfolds like a flower with constant nurturing, and not before its time. Rome would have you believe that a paradise awaits after one lifetime, to be gained by blind obeisance to its laws ... Did you not experience a sense of recognition when we first met in the cave of Lombrives?”

  Yes, she had always been drawn to that mysterious place.

  “You and I lived in caves when the Master preached in the Judean desert,” said Castres. “We were called Essenes.”

  “Why was I required to return to the world?” she asked.

  “The lost sparks from the central Light reincarnate together, as do the souls of the Dark legions. The two armies have stalked each other since the beginning of the aeons. In Judaea, we failed because we were divided. Some of us chose to fight the Roman oppressors in a wasteful slaughter. We swore off the sword and took refuge in the hills above the Dead Sea to meditate on the Light. We were called perfects.”

  “As we are now,” she said.

  “The discipline does not change. We healed the sick and refused to eat the flesh of animals. We kept no personal possessions. Our ways were persecuted, as they always are. Many of us chose suicide rather than submit to the defilements of the Demiurge.”

  “Were our teachings lost?”

  “Manuscripts can be burned and wise men martyred, but the memory of souls will never be destroyed.” Seeing her slumped with despond over the prospect of an endless cycle of earthly struggles, Castres reassured her, “The sacred gnosis is only awakened when the Spear has pierced the heart and the Cup has been filled with new blood.”

  “You mean this knowledge is already within me?”

  “‘Look not for it over there, or over here,’ said the Master. When the serpent rises, the old skin is shed and the new is reborn.”

  “How am I to know what is real and what is not?”

  “The recorded past is the first illusion perpetrated of the Demiurge,” he said. “Point your finger at my nose. Is your finger now my nose?”

  “Of course not.”

  “If a road sign says ‘I am the Way,’ do we worship the sign? Or do we continue on our journey toward our destination?”

  “Even a fool would know the answer to that,” she said.

  “Why then does Rome falsely claim that Jesus is the Godhead?”

  She was stunned by the unadorned power of this example. “Why is this not revealed to all?”

  “Few have the courage to cast off the blindfold of ignorance, as you have done this night,” said Castres. “It is easier to believe than to seek and know. Did the Master not warn us against throwing pearls to swine? Did He not say His parables were only for those who had ears to hear? Did He not promise that we would perform His miracles and more?”

  “But what about those who haven’t the faculties to learn this?”

  “This broken world is not just. The newborn cannot read. Does faith alone allow the babe to learn the alphabet? We are all cast as exiles into a foreign land, unable to speak the language that would free us. Yet the Way is marked for those who seek return to the Light. You must never forget your mission here. You have come back to illuminate the way home for those who will follow.”

  Before Esclarmonde could ask another question, she was thrust back into her physical body. Her head pounded and her heart ached from a fathomless sadness. She heard the sarcophagus slab being drawn back. Still blindfolded, she was led up the staircase and left standing in the bitter cold. Several minutes passed until she could no longer endure the silence. She pulled off the blindfold to discover the identity of her escorts.

  She was alone atop Montsegur.

  Not since the courts of love had there been such excitement in Occitania. After undergoing her covert initiation, Esclarmonde announced that she would take the vow of a perfecta. So many dignitaries and countrymen insisted on attending the unprecedented event that Bishop Castres was required to dispense with the tradition of holding the ordination in a modest house. Instead, he made arrangements for her ascension in the chateau of Fanjeaux, a renowned meeting place of troubadours that was situated equidistant from Toulouse, Foix, and Carcassonne. The ancient city sat on a high spur of rock that held the ruins of a Temple to Jupiter and overlooked the Lauragais plains and Montaigne Noir forest.

  On the morning of the ceremony, the philandering sun withdrew behind legions of cadaverous clouds that rolled ominously across the pocked plateaux and descended on the spires and rooftops, encompassing the burgh in an oppressive gloom. In an anteroom of the great hall, Esclarmonde
prepared for her life-altering step by fasting and praying alone. As the early hours passed, a gradual darkening settled in like a solar eclipse. Since undertaking the regimen of a novitiate, she had become more sensitive to the spiritual signs abounding around her. Shaken, she could not determine if this preternatural occlusion of day was an approval of her worldly denial or an omen of warning.

  Roger entered the room to make one last attempt to dissuade her. “The barons have looked the other way when the perfects arrived in their cities. But no noblewoman of your stature has ever openly embraced this Cathar faith.”

  “No one is requiring you to follow my example.”

  “This undertaking will cause severe repercussions in Rome. A sister who is a heretic is the sister of a heretic.

  “You married a heretic.”

  “My wife does not flaunt her faith before the entire aristocracy of the Languedoc. We will all pay dearly for this conceit of yours.”

  Hearing her husband’s raised voice, Phillipa hurried into the room with Loupe. She tried to calm Roger. “My love, how much more harm can the monks do to us? You must permit her to follow her calling.”

  Exasperated, Roger made a move to leave, but Esclarmonde called him back. “My vows require that I relinquish all of my possessions.”

  “Empty your closets into the streets for all I care,” he said. “No doubt you’ll take great pride in throwing away all that our father sacrificed to give us.”

  “The perfects have no place to take refuge. I wish to give them Montsegur.”

  “The Cistercians will deem that a blatant act of defiance!” said Roger.

  “The mount is holy,” said Esclarmonde. “God gave it to us to protect.”

  When the belfry chimed to announce the ceremony, Roger stormed out in a huff. Phillipa hugged Esclarmonde and offered up Loupe for a kiss.

  The congregation fell silent as Castres escorted Esclarmonde into the hall. The walls shimmered from the light of a hundred streaming candles. Attired in a plain linen tunic, she came to the kneeler on the dais and looked down on the hundreds of Occitan nobles whose fiery reds and satin blues contrasted sharply with the somber garb of the robed Cathars.

  Castres commenced the ritual by washing his hands in the ablution bowl. “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am. On this day, Esclarmonde de Foix accepts the life of a perfecta.” He raised his hands over her head. “Do you give yourself to God and the Gospel?”

  “I do.”

  “And do you promise that you will eat neither meat nor eggs, nor cheese, and that you shall live on the vegetable of wood and the fish of water, that you will not lie, that you will not swear oaths, that you will not kill, even should your own life be forfeited, that you will not abandon your body to any form of luxury, and that you will never abandon your faith for fear of water, fire, or any other manner of death?”

  “I so promise.”

  Castres held aloft the Gospel of John, whose description of the Light was committed to memory by every member of their faith. “This is the true baptism of the Holy Spirit, given by the hands of Our Lord and his Apostles.”

  Esclarmonde recited the next verse. “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world passeth away and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.”

  As she spoke, a pall descended over the assembly. The revelry and gaiety of the love courts had long since vanished. Gone were the flirting eyes, the merry dances, the hopes and dreams of a young girl. All the Languedoc now seemed a vast shriveled vineyard that had been worked for too many years.

  The damp-eyed nobles joined her in the recitation. “While ye have Light, believe in the Light, that ye may be the children of Light. I am come as a Light unto the world, that whosoever believeth in me should not abide—”

  A courier muddied from a forced ride hurried down the aisle and whispered a message to Roger. After a stunned hesitation, Roger stood and announced to the assembly, “On this day, Folques de Marseille has been installed as the Bishop of Toulouse.”

  A cry of disbelief swept the assembly.

  The Marquessa gathered her granddaughter into her arms. “Ah, child, what unhinged world are we leaving you?”

  Castres calmed the distraught congregation. When silence was restored, he nodded for Esclarmonde to proceed with her final rite, the public confession.

  Esclarmonde was still unsettled by the perverse symmetry of the news. Folques had cynically chosen to make his ascension on the same day as hers. She stood slowly from the kneeler and confessed for all to hear, “I have held pride and vanity in my heart. I ask forgiveness of the Bishop of Toulouse for the injuries I inflicted on his reputation. I pray he will not hold others responsible for my actions.”

  Roger shouted, “That traitor will never be forgiven!”

  Esclarmonde gazed down at Roger with compassion. “I have crossed wills with my brother and have brought him much strife. I fear my decision this day will cause him more. I ask his forgiveness and understanding.”

  Roger was softened by her unexpected gesture.

  She scanned the hall and searched for one more face. Denied in that forlorn hope, she resolved to accept the most difficult of the conditions for her conversion. “I have kept a man in my heart. He has been nearer to me than God Himself. I know not whether he still lives, but I ask his forgiveness for leading him astray from his sacred vows. In what I am about to do, I will break a solemn promise that I once made to him.”

  Castres draped Esclarmonde’s shoulders with a black robe and tied her waist three times with the costi, a belt made from white linen threads. Phillipa presented her with a copy of the New Testament that she had secretly labored on each night for two years, copying the words in Occitan and illustrating the margins. Phillipa and Castres placed the small tome on Esclarmonde’s head and supported her at the elbows to transmit the Touch of Love.

  A white dove flew through the window and fluttered across the ceiling beams. Startled, Esclarmonde opened her eyes at its flapping. The dove circled and escaped toward a distant hill where a lute player commenced a plangent melody. Several chords into the song, an unseen troubadour accompanied the musician with these words:

  Fear not, my Lady, that thy Love did cruel havoc play,

  What wind shakes not the rooted flower to seed a new spring’s lay?

  Look close upon those wetted cheeks so near to thee this day,

  And know if granted second chance, not one would wish away.

  Esclarmonde’s heart leapt at the familiar voice. Could it truly be him? Had he received the news of her conversion and come back to claim her? Why did he wait until this last hour?

  As for this mismatched troubadour, who carries blade not tune,

  His Love is not the mannered type that dies without the swoon.

  He begs, before his soul God calls, she grant one final boon,

  That from the holy peak again they’ll gaze Diana’s moon.

  No longer able to deny herself the temptation, she turned and searched the horizon for the singer of the monody. There was no one on the knoll. Had it only been her imagination? Here was the last chance to change her mind before the ritual kiss sealed her fate. Cruel world. She found Castres staring at her intently, awaiting her decision. Had the Bishop contrived this vision as a final test? She lowered her eyes and prayed for the strength to release Guilhelm from her heart, then she nodded her readiness for the final acclamation.

  “This day,” pronounced Castres, “you are reborn of the Spirit.”

  The knights and ladies in the audience turned to one another and exchanged the Cathar Kiss of Peace. They filed up in a single line to offer Esclarmonde the ritual greeting of the Melioramentum and genuflected three times before asking of her the traditional blessing:
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  “Help me, Perfecta, to make a good death.”

  Part Two

  The Vineyards of Death

  1206-1231 AD

  To know is more than to believe.

  - Clement of Alexandria

  It is not I alone whom the Holy Spirit visits. I have a large family on earth, and at certain times, on certain days, and at certain places, the Spirit gives Light.

  - A Cathar prisoner’s confession

  XVII

  Montsegur

  October 1206

  Halfway up the sinuous climb, Esclarmonde begged a moment’s rest to catch her breath. Finding Loupe staring at her with the silent verdict that she had become old, Esclarmonde smiled ruefully and accepted her niece’s judgment as unassailable.

  Chandelle, holding fast to Loupe’s hand, was drawn toward a small clearing near the path. Her blind eyes suddenly filled with tears from some inward terror. “It feels hot over there. Like fire.”

  Esclarmonde brought the sensitive child into her embrace. “Whatever it is, love, it’s only in your mind and cannot harm you.”

  The company of these two girls, both now five years old, had done much to ease the grief that she had suffered after Guilhelm’s disappearance and the loss of her son to the Cistercians. Corba had sent Chandelle to Foix for a week’s visit, and though the girls were starkly different in both features and temperament, they immediately became inseparable. The blonde, wispy Chandelle wore a perpetual smile as if unaware that another expression was possible. There was the clairvoyant wisdom of the ancient sibyl in her silky voice; she often cobbled together the most astonishing juxtapositions of descriptions and observations. She was not been embittered by her blindness, but reveled in the gifts offered by her other senses, laughing in ecstatic pleasure at the unexpected trilling of a lark or the whiff of a sage bloom.