The Fire and the Light

by Glen Craney

  Guilhelm elbowed closer to gain a better vantage of Raymond’s tormentor. Cursing his discovery, he pulled his hood over his head and tried to slink back into a side alley.

  “You!” ordered Folques. “The beggar!”

  A covey of deacons captured Guilhelm and shoved him back into the street.

  Folques forced the birches into Guilhelm’s hands. “The penitent will be abused by the lowest of his subjects.”

  Count Raymond was bent low with exhaustion from the humiliating ordeal. He turned and looked up into the recesses of the mendicant’s hood. His sweat-stung eyes widened in recognition. To avoid suspicion, he offered his back to Guilhelm for another blow, then whispered, “Stroke hard.”

  His identity still undetected, Guilhelm brought the birches down as gently as he dared. The throngs shouted promises of retaliation, but he preferred the anger of the crowd to the risk of being unmasked by Folques. Satisfied with the arrangement, Folques renewed the procession’s advance toward the church. Guilhelm tightened the noose in mock abuse and drove the Count to his knees. He exhorted the baron through fixed lips, “Stand firm against these treacherous priests! The people will rally to you!”

  The Count labored and heaved, breathing loudly through his teeth. “The Abbot of Citeaux marches from Lyons with a host of thousands!”

  “Why has Trencavel not mustered his forces with you?”

  The Count hung his head in shame. “My nephew and I are estranged.”

  “You can still turn them back.”

  “It’s too late for me. You must warn the Wolf. These Cistercians will not be appeased until they have his sister in chains.”

  Guilhelm brought the birches down, this time with real force. He was about to punish the feckless baron again when he saw his twelve-year-old son, Raymond VII, walking behind the procession and sharing every wince. He sensed in the resolute lad all the mettle that was lacking in the old man. He forced the Count to look at his heir. “If you persist in this groveling, that boy will not inherit a kingdom!”

  Folques halted the punitive cortege at the Abbey Church, a popular pilgrimage sanctuary whose doors had been nailed with a papal declaration of a crusade against the Cathars. He climbed to the portico and read aloud Rome’s condemnation of the Occitan heretics:

  Damned are they when they are asleep and awake.

  Damned are they everywhere and at all times.

  Damned are they at day and at night.

  Damned are they when they eat and when they drink.

  Damned are they when they are silent and when they speak.

  Damned are they from their heads to the soles of their feet,

  That their eyes may become blind,

  That their ears may become deaf,

  That their mouths will be dumb,

  Damned are all parts of their bodies.

  Damned are they when they stand, lie down, or sit,

  That they may be buried with the dogs and the donkeys,

  And that the violent wolves may tear their bodies apart.

  Three archbishops and nineteen bishops—nearly the entire ecclesiastic hierarchy of France—emerged from the nave armed with the reliquary that bore the consecrated femur of the city’s namesake. A prelate shouted the malefaction issued by the Pope: “Raymond de Toulouse, pestilent man, tremble! Thou art like the crows living on carrion. Impious, cruel, and barbarous tyrant, thou art declared anathema for the murder of Peter de Castelnau.”

  The Count gazed up with blood-filled eyes at the lintels that held the world’s only sculpted depiction of the Lord’s Passion: The Four Evangelists floated undisturbed above a gory Apocalypse in which lions devoured saints and Satan’s legions fought archangels in the final battle for the world. He found the scene a fitting allegory for his own blackened fate.

  “What proof?” screamed one of his subjects.

  Folques tightened the rope against the Count’s throat. “The legate’s body was exhumed and found redolent of a sanctified fragrance!”

  “Drenched in myrrh and honey!” shouted another Occitan in the crowd. “I was there when they gutted him! He stank like that Norman whorehouse he was born in!”

  Unnerved by the rising foment, Folques yanked the noose to speed the Count’s acceptance of the prearranged punishment.

  “I take responsibility,” muttered Raymond, half audible.

  “In the words agreed,” required Folques.

  The Count finally relented, “I am duly suspect of guilt.”

  “And your accomplice, Bernard Grenac?”

  “He has taken flight.”

  “The felon who wielded the dagger will soon be apprehended,” said Folques. “Pronounce the sentence of death on him.”

  Another lash spurred Raymond’s cry, “It shall be done!”

  “And you shall relinquish all rights to the bishoprics and monasteries.”

  That demand stoked the mob’s rage. Such a catastrophe would cost the citizens of Toulousia precious earnings from the local ecclesiastic estates and force them to pay more tithes to the rapacious Cistercians.

  “Answer, or you shall remain excommunicate,” insisted Folques.

  With a huff of anguish, the Count gave up the final concession. “Be gone with them all!”

  The fractious crowds surged forward. “Go back to your abbeys!”

  Pummeled by a fusillade of rocks, Folques and his vespiary of monks retreated into the church, dragging the Count with them. They tried to bolt the doors, but the rabble broke through before the beam could be jammed. Guilhelm was swept into the narthex with the surge.

  Folques cowered behind the Count on the chancel platform. “Command them to desist! Or the army will be ordered to attack this city first.”

  Count Raymond weighed his bitter dilemma: Lose the respect of his people or forfeit St. Gilles. He stole a guilty glance at Guilhelm, then erupted to his feet. “I join the Holy Father’s crusade!”

  His subjects fell silent, unable to comprehend their liege’s betrayal.

  Folques pulled the shifty baron behind the altar to demand an explanation. “What treachery is this?”

  Raymond raised his head to be heard. “Rome has promised protection for those who take the Cross! Toulousia must be spared!”

  The Occitans suddenly saw the cunning in Raymond’s turn of allegiance. Roaring their approval, they stormed the altar to congratulate their liege on outwitting the officious Cistercians. Guilhelm withered the conniving baron with a glare of accusation. Both knew that once the Pope’s army was unleashed in the Languedoc, it would not return north satisfied with a few conversions. Deprived of Raymond’s cities to sack, Almaric and Folques would divert their hordes against the lands of Trencavel and Foix. Desperate to get a warning to Esclarmonde and her brother, Guilhelm searched for some means of slipping out. Across the nave stood the church’s renowned spiral staircase, the Screw, which funneled up to the belfry tower. He sank into his cowl and navigated against the crush to reach it.

  “The wretch escapes!” shouted a man in the crowd. Guilhelm dashed up the steps, but the mob pulled him down and set to thrashing him. “Dog! See if you lay hands on our liege again!”

  Folques watched with indifference as the beggar was passed through a gauntlet of fists and kicks—until the captive’s hood was ripped off. He lurched to the fore and shouted, “Bring that man to me!”

  The gendarmes dragged Guilhelm to the altar.

  Folques circled his old nemesis and grinned at his good fortune. “The Lord’s nets are cast, and we know not what they bring. This Templar is a fugitive from justice. Convicted in absentia for the murder of a Christian knight in blood revenge for a tournament loss.” He turned on Raymond with a punishing smirk. “As I recall, baron, the combat was held in honor of your son’s baptism.”

  Raymond nervously assessed the mob’s reaction to that revelation. “I’ve never before laid eyes on this vagabond.”

  Folques motioned to a deacon for his diocesan pouch and produced the indictment t
hat he always carried with him. “The wife of the dead knight, an adulteress and heretic, conspired in the deed. The finding against her was duly recorded in Toulouse.”

  Guilhelm rushed at Folques, but the guards subdued him. “The Viscountess of Foix had no hand in it!”

  “The heretic woman will receive her justice in due time.” With a smile of anticipation, Folques turned to hoist Count Raymond on the petard of his own cleverness. “Great crusader that you’ve just become, baron, the Almighty has presented you with an opportunity to demonstrate your newfound faith. Proceed with the felon’s execution.”

  “You have no authority to order his death,” insisted the Count.

  “The Holy Father has granted me plenary powers to issue all necessary decrees. This man is a condemned consort of the heretic conspirators.”

  With his own murder indictment hanging over his head, Raymond had no choice but to begrudge his consent. The constabularies dragged Guilhelm from the church and prodded him toward a beam that had been erected in the square. They hoisted him on a timbrel and tied his hands behind his back.

  Seeing the relic vendor in the crowd, Guilhelm swallowed his pride and begged Folques, “Allow me to die with the beads of the Virgin.”

  Folques savored this pitiful display of groveling. He motioned the hawker forward to grant the Templar’s last request.

  Guilhelm whispered to the vendor while the rosary was wrapped around his neck, “The medallion under my shirt. When they cut me down, deliver it to Foix. Tell the viscountess there what you have heard. She must seek safety at once.” He choked with emotion. “Tell her also ... that I love her.”

  “Last words, Montanhagol?” taunted Folques, out of earshot. “Allow us all to hear your minstrel’s lament. You have always been so facile with them. A doggerel, perhaps, about the wind kicking at your heels?”

  “This purchased bishop is the Devil’s confessor!” shouted Guilhelm.

  Folques glared at the Toulouse baron to give the order. Averting a shamed glance, Count Raymond raised his hand to send the Templar to his death.

  Guilhelm closed his eyes and prayed to the Blessed Mother, his protector. She had extricated him from the clutches of the Saracen mamluks at Acre and had nursed him back to health when he had been given up for dead in the frying Egyptian desert. He could not accept that She had walked him through so many valleys of death only to deliver him to Judgment under the pernicious leer of this seducer-turned-cleric. He looked down at the money beads strung around his neck and cursed that damned Castilian Guzman for falsely claiming the Virgin’s special fondness. The cart lurched and rocked ominously. The rope dug like a saw into his jaw. He drew a final breath. The cart inched forward—and came back to rest.

  Damn him! Have done with it!

  The gendarmes cut the rope from the beam.

  He fell tumbling to the floorboards. The back of his head rebounded, surging blood into his nose. The hissing strands of hemp snapped and coiled around his shoulders. When he recovered his bearings, he slowly realized that his neck had not snapped. He looked up and found Folques standing astride him with an arched smirk.

  “You have earned a more appropriate punishment,” said Folques.

  I bring evil from the north and great destruction; the Lion has gone up from his thicket; a destroyer of nations has set out.

  - The Book of Jeremiah

  XX

  Beziers

  July 1209

  Cooled by a pleasant summer zephyr, Esclarmonde sat on a bench atop the observation terrace of Foix castle and tutored Loupe and Chandelle on their Latin grammar assignments. The two girls reminded her of a yoked pair of mismatched carriage rakkers. One was high-strung, quick-gated, and easily distracted; the other tranquil, even-tempered, and inwardly focused. Each had learned to compensate for the other’s contrary tendencies.

  Loupe kept one eye on the board and the other on the persistent flurry of birds that circled the tower, an activity that interested her a great deal more than the Latin. After several unsuccessful attempts to decipher a sentence, she tossed her writing board aside in frustration. “This is boring!”

  Chandelle was startled by the loud report. Assured that it was only one of Loupe’s tantrums, the blind child returned to her task of pressing the stylus with precision into the wax and running her fingers across the surface to make certain that the letters were formed correctly. She fastidiously blew away the shavings, collecting them in her free hand to rework them into the board.

  “You mustn’t neglect the punctuation,” reminded Esclarmonde.

  Shamed at being outdone, Loupe grudgingly retrieved her board. “Papa says Oc is the only language anyone needs to know.”

  Esclarmonde was wise to Loupe’s strategy of pitting her against Roger. “I’ll remind him of that next time he asks me to translate a letter.”

  “He also said that knights don’t marry ladies who are too smart for their own good,” said Loupe.

  “He married your mother. And she’s smarter than him by the length of a church aisle. He doesn’t seem to mind, does he?”

  “Maybe he doesn’t know,” chirped Chandelle.

  The three shared a chuckle to celebrate their secret: As the women of the chateau, they wielded an ulterior power over the lone man in residence. Phillipa and Corba had coaxed Esclarmonde into helping with the girls’ education, an assignment that provided a welcome respite from the demands of her new notoriety. Montsegur was being besieged weekly with appeals for her to preach in lands as far away as Italy, but Castres rejected them all, citing the dangers of travel. His real reason, she suspected, was that he could not bear the thought of losing her companionship and assistance. The disputation at Pamiers two months earlier had taken a heavy toll on him in both body and spirit.

  “Latin is the language of lovers.” Chandelle carefully enunciated each word as she pressed the letters into the wax.

  “Is not!” said Loupe. “Troubadours sing in Oc.”

  A natural diplomat, Chandelle chose not to embarrass Loupe with a correction. Instead, she would ask a question whose answer she already knew. “Did the Romans have troubadours, Aunt Essy?”

  Esclarmonde stroked Chandelle’s hair in approval of her subtle method for handling Loupe. “Yes, they did. Ovid was a Roman bard who knew all the secrets for pleasing ladies. But he wrote in Latin, so Loupe probably doesn’t want to hear about him.”

  Loupe wrestled with the dilemma. “Just this once.”

  Esclarmonde caressed Chandelle’s arm to confirm that their conspiracy had succeeded. As the girls nuzzled closer to her, Esclarmonde opened a small book and began by reading its title, “De Arte Honeste Amandi.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Loupe.

  Esclarmonde required a moment; hearing those words again brought up a torrent of memories. Here was the book written by Andreas Capellanus on Ovid’s maxims, the same tome that she and Corba had studied for their initiation into the court of love. Recovering her voice, she explained, “It means ‘The Art of Honest Loving.’ As I recall, there are three sections of prescriptions. The first advises men on how to win a lady. The second instructs how to keep her happy. And the third suggests strategies for a lady to win the heart of a man.”

  “Is there a section that tells how to keep boys away?” asked Loupe.

  Esclarmonde noticed that Chandelle had become oddly silent. “Chandy, where should we start?”

  “No knight will ever wish to court me,” said the blind girl. “I needn’t learn these rules, I think.”

  Fighting back tears, Esclarmonde resolved to instill the blessed child with the requisite amour-proper. “You possess a great advantage, my love. When the gentlemen discover that you care only for their gallantry and goodness of soul, they will flock to you in droves. Now, listen closely while Loupe reads us the first rule.”

  With that promise, Chandelle’s melancholy sailed with the clouds.

  Loupe stumbled on the Latin translation. “Let it be your concern to know
the handmaid of the lady who is to be won. She will faculate—”

  “Fa-cil-i-tate,” corrected Esclarmonde.

  “Facilitate your approaches,” continued Loupe. “Make sure she is the one nearest to the deliberations of the lady and is an entirely trustworthy confidante in your secret games.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Chandelle.

  Esclarmonde was about to explain the time-honored tactic when she saw Loupe distracted by a freckle-faced boy who was hiding behind the stairhead. Loupe flexed like a cat about to pounce on a bug—until Esclarmonde tapped her arm to regain her attention. Denied her raid, Loupe was forced to settle for sticking out her tongue at Bernard Saint-Martin, the son of Roger’s castellan at Laurac. She held an ominous glare on the twelve-year-old lad while she answered Chandelle’s question. “It means that if a boy likes me, he’ll get friendly with you so you’ll tell me how nice he is.”

  “Would a boy really do that, Aunt Essy?” asked Chandelle.

  “It has been known to happen.” Esclarmonde monitored the developing drama with a latent smile. “Let’s read on.”

  “‘The pleasure that comes in safety is less prized,’” read Loupe. “‘Invent a fear, even if you are safer than Thais.’”

  “Who is Thais?” asked Chandelle.

  “She was Alexander the Great’s lover,” said Esclarmonde. “When Thais became tired of men, she walled herself inside a cell.”

  “Maybe Loupe should try that with Bernard,” quipped Chandelle.

  Loupe sprang to her feet. “You promised not to tell!”

  His lurking exposed, Bernard scampered down the stairs and nearly careened into Phillipa, who had been listening to the lesson from afar.

  Esclarmonde winked at Phillipa. “Has a young knight been calling on you, Loupe?”